General Electric Company
DESIGN TOOL FOR OPTIMAL PART CONSOLIDATION SELECTION FOR ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Abstract:

A method, medium, and system to receive an indication of an assembly including a plurality of different components to produce by additive manufacturing (AM), determine based on a forward search process that starts with individual components of the plurality of components and iteratively adds other components of the plurality of components thereto in combinations until an entirety of the assembly is accounted for, determine based on a reverse search process that starts with the entirety of the assembly and iteratively removes components of the plurality of components therefrom in combinations until a two-component set is reached, automatically select an optimal combination of the plurality of components from the combinations determined by the forward search and reverse search processes; and transmit the selection of the optimal combination of the plurality of components to an AM controller.