Systematic approach to the design of additively manufactured products. Guidelines definition for a suitable trade off.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a disruptive technology that can revolutionize the production processes in different fields and extend the design freedom avoiding numerous constraints to the design. Even though an increasing amount of time and resources has been invested in research and development in the last few years, a wider adoption of this production technique is hindered by many questions that still need to be answered. The present work aims to explore the different aspects of AM of metal parts, focusing on selective laser melting (SLM) and electron beam melting (EBM) techniques, to show the paths that can be covered, the issues to be faced and the influence that the choices taken by the designers will have on the production process itself and on the final component. First, an extensive literature review has been carried out to identify the features of AM. Then, starting from the selection of the metal powder, following to the appropriate topological optimization approach, the most suitable set of design parameters and the right heat treatment, the connections between all the possible alternatives and the manufactured part are highlighted. Different perspectives concerning management, economic and sustainability are also explored, and, at the end, a case study is provided to show how the guidelines elaborated can be useful for the engineers starting from the early design stages.