Case Study: pro-beam additive GmbH cuts DED simulation time by 92.5% with Hexagon's ATC approach

New FEM approach for Directed Energy Deposition (DED) processes significantly reduces computational time enabling industrial use

The customer, pro-beam additive GmbH, a company specializing in additive manufacturing, faced the challenge that fully transient FEM simulations for Directed Energy Deposition (DED) processes required extremely long computation times, making industrial application of the simulation technology unattractive. Hexagon worked with them, utilizing their Simufact Welding software for DED process simulation, to address this obstacle.

Hexagon implemented a new Advanced Thermal Cycle (ATC) solution approach for the simulations, which processes specific weld paths in segments to drastically reduce calculation time. This new method achieved a 92.5% reduction in computation time, from 30 hours down to just 2 hours and 15 minutes, while maintaining high accuracy with a deviation of less than 5% compared to both physical scans and the previous simulation method.

pro-beam additive GmbH

Verena Uhl

Head of Additive