PanX - A Novel and Unique FEA Software Architecture for AM

PanX enables high accuracy thermomechanical simulation and optimization for parts of any size or complexity

PanX is Accurate.

PanX is Scalable.

PanX is Fast.

PanX is Efficient.

25,874,981 Elements
54,806,663 Nodes
206 GB of RAM
48 Core Desktop
160 Hours to Print
14 Hour PanX Solve

How can PanX achieve higher accuracy and superior performance than all other available software solutions?

Efficient and Scalable Architecture

New Approach to Solving Additive Problems

PanX was designed from the ground up to maximize accuracy and scalability.

PanX re-thinks how AM problems are modeled and utilizes a new set of core technologies to achieve high accuracy at any problem size

Multi-Grid Modeling

Traditional Adaptive Meshing

Elements are activated at the fine resolution, but coarsened throughout the analysis. This erases detail with each coarsening generation

PanX Multi-Grid Modeling

Each new layer brings new refined elements and coarsens previous layers.

The fine grid result is a combination of all of the intermediate grids

Accuracy Improvement​

Since the transient detail is not lost, MGM can resolve fine detail (build lines and stress concentrations) with the same fidelity as a fixed fine grid!

Feature Aware Meshing

Traditional Voxel Mesh

Traditional meshing can capture fine features; however, tends to dramatically over-refine where fine detail is not needed

Feature Aware Mesh

Feature aware meshing maintains fine details where needed, but allows for coarsening in less interesting (bulkier) areas of the model

Large Part Meshing

Efficient Meshing

PanX leverages periodic adaptivity and can easily handle meshes in the 100s of millions of elements.

This "relatively small" 70,934,134 element heat exchanger meshes and solves in 9.2 hours on a 48 core pc

Fast and smart

Feature aware geometry processing lets PanX resolve ultra small features while coarsening elements in bulkier areas where the detail is less critical

Linear Part Scaling

Start fast...End Fast

Legacy additive simulation tools solve the first few layers very quickly, and then slow to a crawl as elements are added

PanX Multi-Grid Modeling with advanced meshing eliminates this exponential slowdown and enables models to run faster over the entire solve.

Dramatically reduced RAM

Besides solve speed, PanX Multi-Grid Modeling with advanced meshing keeps compute resources to a minimum, even for our extra large heat exchanger, which was has almost 283 million elements (and 570 million nodes)

High Accuracy Thermal Prediction

High Accuracy Thermal Strain

High accuracy thermal prediction allows for high accuracy thermal strain prediction, meaning the thermal strains can be accurately computed at the part scale rather than needing to be approximated in the inherent strain calibration

Multi-Grid Modeling of Loose Powder

PanX MGM is so computationally efficient that it enables loose powder modeling in the FEA mesh even for the largest build volumes

Loose powder modeling is needed to accurately capture the conduction between different parts of the build volume to capture complex interactions between (and within) individual build geometries

Novel Weighted Average Approach

Weighted average interlayer temperatures result in high accuracy thermal predictions that are extremely insensitive to mesh size and time step size

Interlayer Temperature (Top), Transient Temperature with Powder (bottom)

Full Build Plate Modeling

Plate level Thermal Effects

PanX enables modeling full build volumes or layouts even when simulating complex geometries

Accounting for part location on the build plate and effects form neighboring parts further improves prediction accuracy for both thermal and mechanical effects

In this example, simply adding delays to account for multiple airfoil geometries, but not the extra energy and location effects both underpredicts the interlayer temperature as well as incorrectly predicting the temperature trends

Account for Machine Parameters and Timing

Further Improve Accuracy by Accounting for Actual Machine Parameters

PanX can accept machine parameters on a voxel-by-voxel basis allowing users to account for spatially varying parameters

PanX can account for contour and other specialized parameters

PanX accepts actual machine process timing to remove uncertainty from average estimates based on bulk parameters

© 2023 Velo3D, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This figure is used with Velo3D permission for marketing purposes only

Multi-Mode Calibration

Single Calibration for Each Machine-Material-Process Combination

Novel multi-mode calibration approach allows for calibration of inherent strains for in-plane and out of plane distortion modes as well as thin and thick sections

Because PanX accounts for thermal strain and plate level effects at the part scale, the need for endless calibration (e.g. building many calibration samples at different locations and/or temperatures) is eliminated

PanX calibration approach eliminates the need to input temperature dependent material properties or other unknowns such as laser absorption efficiency.

Mesh and Solve Arbitrary Geometries

Powerful, Flexible Mesh Generation

Generate FEA meshes for any arbitrary geometry (e.g. 6-axis/12-axis deposition) directly from a geometry file while leveraging Periodic Adaptivity and Feature Aware Meshing

Simulate deposition/cladding on arbitrary geometries

Account for Exact Toolpath

Powerful, Flexible Mesh Generation

Enable accurate simulation of DED and cladding processes by accounting for the actual toolpath deposition

PanX allows meshing from CAD geometry (3MF/STL) or toolpath deposition to allow fine control of how and where the material is deposited.

Material may be activated as individual passes, groups, layers, or any custom combination based on the user needs.

Strain Directionality

PanX and automatically assigns applied strains based on the toolpath directionality

Traditional inherent-strain based tools neglect the toolpath, making them not applicable to DED and cladding processes

High Definition Surface Results

Surface vs Voxel Results

PanX leverages the Multi-Grid approach to map surface results from extremely fine voxel data. ensuring the best possible data resolution.

Warped Results Tell the story

Coarse elements and large macro layers inevitably smooth your results and hide the true complexity of the part behavior.

Here the fine multi-grid mesh shows multiple build lines, warps, and kinks, while the coarse result shows very little useful information.

Smooth Surface Stresses

Mapping data from a coarse mesh can result in very little stress concentration in the final result. Because everything in PanX operates on the multi-grid concept, the surface results have excellent accuracy.

Adjoint Sensitivity Driven Optimization

Optimize Any Model Input

PanX computes the adjoint sensitivities (derivatives of each model output with respect to each input), which enables fast convergence of even large optimization problems

Example analysis showing PanX optimization used to minimize support structure volume while not exceeding the maximum temperature constraint

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