Energy performance-oriented design candidate selection approach for additive manufacturing using toolpath length comparison method

To ensure environmental benefits of additive manufacturing (AM), the energy performance should be optimized in the product design for AM (DfAM). We are proposing a new approach to select the design candidate (DC) for AM with the highest energy performance. In the first stage, multiple DCs are generated using topology optimization. In the second stage, the energy performance of each DC is evaluated based on the Toolpath-Length-Comparison (ToPaLC) method, in which the toolpath lengths of all DCs are calculated and compared. The candidate with the minimum path length is selected as the final design solution with the highest energy performance.