Exploring the Influence of Reference Example Modality and Relevancy on Students' Designs for Additive Manufacturing

Abstract The widespread adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) has led many engineers to create and manufacture designs previously inconceivable, such as intricate geometries and objects with multiple materials. These newfound opportunities are not always leveraged, however, as engineers often rely on their previous experience with traditional manufacturing (TM), which can lead to them creating designs that are inefficient for AM. In contrast to TM, creating designs for AM requires incorporating design for AM (DfAM) heuristics, such as consolidating assemblies into one piece and considering overhanging structures that require support material. For engineers to properly incorporate such heuristics into their designs, there is a need to assist engineers through intervention techniques specifically tailored to help overcome any influence from the engineers' previous experience in TM. As such, this work evaluates students' designs for AM as they are exposed to different DfAM heuristic reference examples. These reference examples were varied by their modality and relevancy to determine if these variables significantly improve the designs that are created for AM. Results show that students' designs were significantly improved for AM when they were provided with abstract examples in an image modality, while only the DfAM heuristic “geometric complexity” saw significant improvement when conveyed in a physical modality.