Siemens, HP Partner on 3D Printing

While 3D printing can accelerate the prototyping and manufacturing process, designing parts so that they are optimized for 3D printing is a skill that most engineers are still developing—and the same goes for many design software packages.

Siemens and HP hope to bridge that gap through the release of an HP-certified additive manufacturing software module from Siemens. The new Siemens NX AM for HP Multi Jet Fusion product is an extension of Siemens’ existing additive manufacturing solutions.

According to the company, the NX module will allow customers to “develop and manage parts in a single software environment for their HP 3D printing projects.”

The two companies are also aligning their technology roadmaps so that engineers using Siemens software can optimize designs for HP’s 3D printers and take advantage of the more complex designs that can be enabled by the technology.

Customers can combine design, optimization, simulation, print job prep and inspection for the HP Multi Jet Fusion printers, as well as load multiple 3D part models into NX, auto nest and submit them to the printer in a single environment. The solution also eliminates the need for data conversion, and will eventually provide user control over material characteristics down to the voxel-level.

Siemens introduced the Additive Manufacturing with NX platform last year. The solution combines CAD modeling with structural and topology optimization capabilities, and was designed for use with powder bed, jet fusion, FDM, and hybrid additive machine tools. In addition to HP, Siemens has also partnered with Stratasys, TRUMPF, EOS and Materialise.

“At Siemens, we see additive manufacturing as a transformative digital force that is empowering companies to reimagine their products and factories to achieve new levels of business performance,” said Zvi Feuer, senior vice president of Manufacturing Engineering Software, Siemens PLM Software. “Deepening our partnership with HP and driving their innovative 3D printing technology is especially important as companies look to increase speed to market, differentiate on product performance, simplify production and supply chain operations, and implement new business models. As products become more complex and individualized, we look forward to the next frontier of 3D printed parts with multiple materials, tunable mechanical properties and integrated electronics.”

Source: HP