ANSYS has announced the acquisition of 3DSIM, a developer of premier additive manufacturing simulation technology. The acquisition now gives ANSYS the industry's only complete additive manufacturing simulation workflow. The terms of the deal were not disclosed until now.
Additive manufacturing is one of the fastest-growing engineering market segments. While it has the potential to transform the industrial manufacturing landscape, companies have several hurdles to overcome before they can broadly replace existing manufacturing methods. Printing metal is particularly challenging because it often involves a laser, which optimizes the metal's density for each application. But it can also melt the metal in unexpected ways, causing product failure. Additionally, rapid heating and cooling causes stresses that can deform the product. The combined ANSYS-3DSIM simulation solution will mitigate those risks, leading to stronger, yet lighter components in the future.
Headquartered in Park City, Utah, 3DSIM develops powerful simulation software for metal additive manufacturing. Its software tools empower manufacturers, designers, materials scientists and engineers, to achieve their objectives through simulation-driven innovation rather than physical trial and error. Customers include aerospace and automotive OEMs, parts manufacturers, metal additive manufacturing machine producers and leading research labs.
3DSIM products include exaSIM, an easy-to-use tool developed specifically for machine operators and designers for additive manufacturing-developed parts. exaSIM provides unparalleled predictions to identify and address residual stress, distortion and build failure, enabling users to achieve part tolerances and avoid build failures without physical experimentation.
Another product, FLEX, enables engineers, analysts and researchers to dial in the best process parameters for a particular additive manufacturing machine and material combination. That leads to the highest level of part integrity and predicts microstructure and properties before building the part.
