DfAM Training: Design for Additive Manufacturing
A 5-day intensive course for engineers and designers who want to move beyond adapting traditional designs for 3D printing — and learn to design parts that fully exploit the geometric freedom, lightweighting potential, and thermal performance advantages of additive manufacturing.
Need DfAM as a service, not a course? TMC also offers design consulting for additive manufacturing — including topology optimization, generative design, and design-to-part support. See our DfAM services →
Course at a Glance
Format
In-person
Duration
5 days
Software
PTC CREO & ANSYS
Location
Randolph, VT
Prerequisite
CREO proficiency required
What You'll Learn
- Design and optimize lattice structures in PTC CREO
- Develop generative designs that exploit AM’s geometric freedom
- Use ANSYS simulation to rapidly iterate and validate designs
- Apply thermal management optimization techniques
- Model and simulate heat exchangers and phase change materials
- Optimize your own design project on Day 5
5-Day Curriculum
Day 1 — Generation and Analysis of Lattice Structures
- DfAM lattice generation
- Design optimization intro
- Multi-objective design studies
- CREO Simulation Live
- Custom & 2.5D lattices
- Architected (meta) materials
- Thermal management applications
Day 2 — Generative Design
- Generative design fundamentals
- Simulation-driven lattice design
- Lattice infill optimization
- Unit cell selection for performance
- Generative design for natural frequency
- Thermal generative design
Day 3 — ANSYS Mechanical for Thermal Management
- ANSYS Discovery preprocessing
- Structural & thermal analysis
- Bidirectional CREO interoperability
- Advanced meshing techniques
- Design exploration & optimization
- AI with ANSYS Workbench RSA
Day 4 — Thermal Management & Design Optimization
- CREO TPMS lattice-to-ANSYS interoperability
- Chassis natural convection
- Liquid-cooled heat exchangers
- Air-cooled heat exchangers
- Phase change materials
- Robust design under AM uncertainty
Day 5 — Design Optimization of Participant Projects
- Participants bring a real design challenge. Working directly with Dr. Vlahinos, each attendee evaluates their baseline design, builds an optimization plan in CREO Simulation, and validates the final design in ANSYS Mechanical — leaving with a simulation-validated result and an automatically generated report.
About the Instructor
AV
Dr. Andreas Vlahinos
Chief Technology Officer, Advanced Engineering Solutions
Dr. Vlahinos holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Georgia Institute of Technology and has served as Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Colorado, where he received the Professor of the Year Award multiple times. A recipient of the R&D 100 Award and holder of multiple patents, he has applied computer-aided engineering at NASA, NREL, SANDIA, and the US Army, and with industry partners including SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Ford Motor Company, and IBM. He is a keynote speaker at international conferences on Generative Design, Innovation, and DfAM.
Dr. Vlahinos also teaches TMC’s ANSYS Design and Analysis Software Training — a 2-day course covering structural, thermal, and dynamic analysis in ANSYS Workbench.
40
Years with ANSYS
150+
Publications
R&D
100 Award recipient
Who Should Attend
- Design and mechanical engineers who want to move beyond traditional design constraints and leverage additive manufacturing's geometric freedom
- Product development teams working on weight reduction, part consolidation, or thermal management challenges
- Engineers in aerospace, defense, medical, or industrial sectors with applications in heat exchangers, structural components, or lattice-based designs
- Existing CREO users ready to integrate simulation-driven optimization into their design workflow
Course Details
Duration
5 days
Format
In-person lectures, demos & hands-on exercises
Software
PTC CREO, ANSYS Mechanical, ANSYS Discovery, CREO Simulation Live
Location
The Manufacturing Collaborative, Randolph, VT