Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM; ISO/ASTM 52910)

1. What Is Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM; ISO/ASTM 52910)?

Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) is an engineering discipline that shapes products around the opportunities and constraints of additive manufacturing, rather than simply printing geometry developed for machining or casting. Its purpose is to connect functional requirements, design choices, and a viable production route. ISO/ASTM 52910:2018 provides general requirements, guidelines, and recommendations for this work; it does not supply universal material properties or process-specific design limits.

For manufacturers of industrial machinery and capital equipment, the executive question is specific: which components or assemblies should be redesigned for additive production, and what must change to manufacture them reliably? Evaluate hydraulic passages, tooling, fixtures, and lightweight moving assemblies as candidates—not as automatic conversions.

2. Origin and Background

Origin: No single creator is established for DfAM as a broad discipline. Documented use dates to at least 2007, when David W. Rosen published “Design for Additive Manufacturing: A Method to Explore Unexplored Regions of the Design Space” at the Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium. This establishes an early reference, not exclusive authorship.

ISO/ASTM 52910’s first edition was published in July 2018 through collaboration between ISO Technical Committee 261 and ASTM Committee F42. It established shared guidance for exploiting additive design freedoms while recognizing limitations and warning signs. Its mechanical-part orientation is relevant to equipment engineering, but its illustrative design procedures are not mandatory development stages.

3. How Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM; ISO/ASTM 52910) Works

The acronym describes the discipline, rather than four formal stages:

• D — Design: Define geometry and functional requirements.
• f — for: Tailor choices to the intended production route.
• A — Additive: Form geometry by adding material.
• M — Manufacturing: Address the finished, usable component.

ISO/ASTM 52910 organizes its substantive guidance around design opportunities and limitations, design considerations, and warning issues. The central logic is iterative: identify additive potential, select a feasible material-process combination, develop the design, and compare it against requirements and alternatives.

Design opportunities and limitations

Additive production can enable complex geometry, customization, lattice structures, and integration of formerly separate parts. For equipment designers, consider whether these freedoms could improve fluid routing, reduce moving mass, or eliminate assembly interfaces. However, geometric novelty alone is not a business benefit.

Design considerations

Design rules must reflect the chosen process. Laser-based powder bed fusion of metals, for example, has dedicated guidance extending ISO/ASTM 52910. Treat build orientation, supports, dimensional requirements, and material behavior as linked decisions—not independent checklist entries.

Warning issues

A printable shape may still be difficult to finish. Powder removal, support removal, heat treatment, and machining belong in the design review, especially for internal passages and precision interfaces. ASTM F3530 addresses post-processing design considerations for laser-based metal powder bed fusion.

Use the functional assembly as the starting unit of analysis. A printed manifold should be assessed with its connections, valves, mounting interfaces, inspection requirements, and field-service needs—not as an isolated solid model.

4. When to Use Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM; ISO/ASTM 52910)

DfAM is particularly useful when complex geometry, customization, low production volumes, or unusual combinations of properties create a credible reason to reconsider the manufacturing route. It is less compelling when an existing conventional process already meets requirements economically. These are screening principles, not universal volume thresholds.

Start with decisions such as redesigning a constrained fluid-handling assembly, shortening tooling development, or evaluating an obsolete replacement part. Gather drawings, operating loads, demand by variant, current routings, supplier capabilities, and costs. Include design engineering, manufacturing engineering, quality, procurement, finance, and service personnel. Separate an initial screening workshop from the subsequent qualification effort.

When evaluating additive manufacturing and machine tools, require evidence beyond a successful demonstration build. Qualification concerns materials, processes, and finished parts. Conclusions become misleading when teams assume that prototype performance proves production repeatability or that a supplier’s capability transfers unchanged to another machine or route.

5. How to Apply Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM; ISO/ASTM 52910): Step-by-Step

The following workflow is a practical management adaptation, not a prescribed sequence from the standard.

1. Clarify the decision and scope.

   Specify whether the decision concerns redesign, sourcing, production release, or equipment investment. Set the operating envelope, product variants, geography, expected demand, and evaluation horizon. Establish non-negotiable performance and serviceability requirements before discussing printing technology.

2. Gather the baseline evidence.

   Collect controlled models and drawings, material specifications, load cases, tolerances, failure records, assembly labor, lead times, and inspection costs. Obtain supplier-specific information on available processes, finishing routes, capacity, and demonstrated capabilities. Record uncertainties explicitly.

3. Define comparable units of analysis.

   Compare components or functional assemblies delivering the same outcome. For a hydraulic circuit, include blocks, fittings, connections, machining, assembly, and testing. Do not compare a bare printed component with a fully finished conventional assembly.

4. Construct the design and decision package.

   Develop a conventional baseline and one or more additive redesigns. For each, document geometry, material-process choice, orientation, removal access, finishing allowances, inspection strategy, and production routing. Add a comparison sheet covering performance, cost, delivery, and unresolved risks.

5. Analyze feasibility before ranking value.

   Treat essential performance, cleanliness, inspectability, and customer requirements as pass-or-fail conditions. Then compare viable alternatives. Separate demonstrated evidence from simulation results, supplier estimates, and assumptions. Avoid hiding a fatal constraint inside an attractive weighted score.

6. Translate the result into actions.

   Choose whether to retain the current route, redesign further, commission trials, or proceed toward release. Assign owners for engineering changes, supplier development, testing, process controls, and operator training. Define the evidence required at each approval gate.

7. Test sensitivities and alternatives.

   Vary demand, build utilization, yield, finishing effort, inspection burden, and supplier lead time. Revisit the conventional alternative as well. Identify the conditions under which the recommendation reverses, rather than presenting one estimate as a permanent answer.

8. Align stakeholders and iterate.

   Review the package with quality specialists, suppliers, production personnel, and field-service engineers. Resolve disagreements through targeted trials or revised assumptions. Update the design and business case together as evidence improves.

For a multi-workstream production launch, program management support can help coordinate supplier trials, engineering releases, validation milestones, and unresolved decisions. The objective should be production readiness, not completion of a printing experiment.

6. Example: Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM; ISO/ASTM 52910) in Action

Fictional example: Alder Forge Equipment builds customized hydraulic power units for industrial presses. One low-volume assembly uses two drilled blocks, external connections, and several customer-specific variants. Engineering wants fewer potential leakage interfaces and a smaller installation envelope without sacrificing field maintenance.

The team compares three alternatives: the existing assembly, a printed reproduction of the existing blocks, and a redesigned metal manifold with integrated passages. Inputs include operating pressure and temperature, fluid compatibility, demand by variant, supplier quotations, assembly records, and inspection proposals. The team assumes that ports and valve interfaces must remain compatible with the installed equipment.

The printed reproduction offers little functional improvement. The redesigned manifold provides the stronger opportunity, but its first concept contains passages that cannot be cleaned and verified adequately. Engineering revises passage geometry, specifies powder-removal access, and retains machining allowances at sealing interfaces. Replaceable valves remain separate rather than being consolidated indiscriminately.

The economic comparison includes finishing, cleaning, inspection, and validation—not merely printing. Alder Forge authorizes an outsourced pilot with predefined pressure-cycle, leakage, flow, and cleanliness tests. Serial release remains conditional on repeatability across builds. Standard, higher-volume blocks stay on the conventional route, and no printer purchase is approved before demand and production economics are established.

7. Strengths and Limitations

Strengths

• Connects geometry with function. It encourages teams to reconsider what an assembly must accomplish instead of preserving inherited part boundaries.
• Makes trade-offs visible. Performance opportunities can be evaluated alongside finishing, inspection, sourcing, and maintenance requirements.
• Supports disciplined experimentation. Uncertainties become specific trial questions, helping executives fund evidence rather than enthusiasm.

Limitations

DfAM guidance does not provide a complete qualification system. Internal-feature measurement, surface condition, material properties, and acceptance criteria require additional work. For cyclically loaded equipment, fatigue assessment also needs evidence beyond static strength or nominal material specifications.

Economic attractiveness is equally conditional. Build utilization, production time, material, and labor influence costs, while benefits may arise during equipment operation rather than fabrication. Therefore, neither “lower part count” nor “less material” proves a favorable investment case.

8. Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

• Printing the legacy design. A direct copy may preserve unnecessary interfaces and manufacturing assumptions. Develop at least one concept around the required function before deciding whether additive offers value.
• Using universal design rules. Generic wall thicknesses or overhang limits create false confidence. Obtain rules and evidence for the selected material, machine, process, and finishing route.
• Stopping at printer cost. This can exclude the activities needed to obtain an accepted component. Compare complete routings, including cleaning, finishing, inspection, rejected output, and launch effort.
• Consolidating serviceable components. Fewer parts can create a more expensive replacement unit. Preserve wear items, access points, and repair boundaries unless the lifecycle case supports consolidation.
• Confusing screening with release approval. An attractive concept is not a production decision. Specify validation evidence, acceptance criteria, configuration controls, and accountable release authorities.

A follow-on design for manufacturing engagement should produce revised drawings, process-specific design rules, a validated routing, and a release-ready control plan—not simply a printable model.

9. How Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM; ISO/ASTM 52910) Relates to Other Frameworks

Quality Function Deployment before DfAM

Quality Function Deployment translates customer needs into technical requirements. Use it first when priorities are unclear: for example, whether an equipment buyer values compactness, efficiency, maintainability, or delivery speed most. DfAM then explores manufacturing-enabled responses to those requirements.

Design for Manufacturing alongside DfAM

Design for Manufacturing provides the broader route comparison. DfAM focuses on additive opportunities and constraints; broader manufacturability analysis can compare additive, machining, and combined routes. Use the broader comparison first when technology selection is unresolved, rather than assuming additive is the answer.

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis alongside development

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis structures the examination of potential failures and their consequences. Apply it to both the redesigned component and its production process. For a manifold, investigate leakage, contamination, blockage, and inspection failures. DfAM develops the design opportunity; failure analysis helps challenge its risks.

10. Key Takeaways

• Use DfAM to reconsider function and production together—not merely to convert files into printed parts.
• Evaluate complete assemblies and finished production routes on a comparable basis.
• Make feasibility and acceptance requirements explicit before ranking economic benefits.
• Translate promising concepts into targeted trials, controlled releases, and accountable implementation.
• Preserve a credible conventional alternative throughout the analysis.

11. FAQs About Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM; ISO/ASTM 52910)

Is DfAM the same as ISO/ASTM 52910?

No. DfAM is the broader design discipline. ISO/ASTM 52910 is a general reference for its application. It identifies relevant considerations but does not provide process-specific dimensional limits, material data, or a ready-made design solution.

Can smaller equipment manufacturers use DfAM?

Yes. Start with one assembly, a clear functional problem, and a capable external supplier. A focused comparison and targeted pilot are more useful than immediately purchasing equipment or attempting to redesign an entire product portfolio.

How long does a DfAM assessment take?

Separate screening from industrialization. Schedule screening around the availability of drawings, requirements, and supplier input. Build the release schedule around the necessary trials, inspections, and approval gates. A promising concept should not be assigned the same timeline as a qualified production component.