Case Study: Miba Sinter Austria achieves 85% lighter 3D-printed hinge designs with Hexagon MSC Apex Generative Design

Generating competitive 3D printing designs for simple parts over lunch time

Miba Sinter Austria GmbH, a technology leader in powder metallurgy, sought to make a sintering furnace hinge cost-competitive for additive manufacturing. The challenge was that a conventional manual design optimization for the simple part was too complex and time-consuming to be economically viable. To address this, they turned to the vendor Hexagon and utilized their MSC Apex Generative Design software.

The solution from Hexagon enabled Miba's engineers to define parameters and generate multiple optimized design candidates in under an hour. This process achieved an 85% weight reduction and slashed calculation time to just 40 minutes per design on a standard workstation. The result was a hinge that was significantly lighter and cheaper to produce, making their additive manufacturing process far more competitive and allowing such optimizations to be completed in hours instead of weeks.

Miba Sinter Austria

Martin Laher

Director