Ossium

I was asked to create an exhibit showcasing the ability to maintain a ‘digital thread’ across the entire additive manufacturing process - meaning that parts created from a 3D printer have tracking information about everything from the material lot to the ID of the printer the part was made on. I hoped to create an inspirational piece showcasing Carbon’s technological potential. Ossium is a generatively-created stand.

Initial sketches of general form. I wanted a cantilevered design to allow for a clear field of view for the scanner camera. In addition, I wanted to allow space for parts to be placed directly underneath for scanning.

solidThinking Inspire requires the definition of “design spaces” and “non-design spaces.” Design spaces (in RED) are areas in which the program is allowed to manipulate material, whereas non-design spaces (in GRAY) are areas where the program must keep the original input geometry. Typically, non-design spaces are ‘critical surfaces’ that mate with other parts and thus have very specific geometric requirements.

Here, we are designing for a 200lb downward cantilevered force, supported predominantly at three points of support.

Using solidThinking Inspire, I ran a generative load test after specifying material conditions, geometric constraints, and load cases. After the initial rough formal generation, there is a lot of post-modeling design work done to make the part printable and beautiful. Once complete, the design was printed on a Carbon M2 printer in EPX 82 dual-cure resin. This resin was selected for its rigidity and dimensional stability.

Once printed, LED lights were integrated into slots designed into the frame. The LED lights serve to illuminate the datamatrix code on the scanner part to ensure scannability. The datamatrix code contains the 3D-printed part’s unique serial code. This allows for traceability across the ‘digital thread’ of additive manufacturing, and allows the scanner to reference a wealth of manufacturing data.