My favorite part of having a 3D printer is that I can print my own designs. I really love designing stuff, printing it, and using my design for its intended purpose. Recently, I modeled up a pretty basic phone stand. My design wasn't anything special, I mimicked the designs of phone stands I have seen for sale.
As you can see, there isn't anything special about it. After I printed my phone stand, I thought, "I wonder what generative design would come up with?" So I decided to run a study to see what Fusion 360 would do.
I made a copy of my design and trimmed the model down so all I had left were the preserve geometry I wanted. With this design, I wanted to be able to rest a portable power supply under the phone, so I added a block to the design to represent a portable power supply. I had to oversize it because I wanted to be able to slide it in from the front.
With my preserves and obstacles modeled, I was able to enter the Generative Design workspace and identify the preserves and obstacles. The next step was to set up my load cases. I decided to add one Load Case that represented the phone in the stand. I figured it would make sense to have a fixed Structural Constraint that held the base to whatever surface it is sitting on. For my Structural Load, I looked up the specifications for my phone and found that it weighs a half-pound. So I set the load to a half-pound. From previous experience, I felt that it was likely that Fusion 360 would not be able to solve the study because the load was too light. However, I decided to start with the actual weight and I could increase the load if necessary. My suspicions were right and I ended up setting the load to five pounds because the first few attempts to solve the study failed.
When it came to defining the material, Fusion 360 does not have PLA in the Material Library. For this print, I intended to use a spool of High-Temperature PLA, so I had to do an internet search for the material properties of PLA so I could add it to my Material Library.
The last step is to define the Manufacturing method. I set mine to Additive and Z+ because that is the XYZ orientation to the print-bed that I intended for this design. Some day I might run the study again using all orientations just to see what Fusion will come up with.
So here is my phone stand next to the one that Fusion 360 designed (in Fusion 360 then the printed models).
Let's compare key attributes of the two designs to see which one is better. To be fair, I ran FEA Simulations on both of these in Fusion 360, with the same loads and constraints.
Here are my results, listed as my design vs. Generative Designs outcome.
Time to Print: 10 hours v. 8 1/2 hours
Mass: 2.873 oz v. 2.107 oz
Safety Factor: 4.985 v. 4.744
Displacement: 0.1313" v. 0.01845"
In each case, the Generative Design model is better than my design. It can be printed quicker and weighs less. For Safety Factor, if we have a target of 2 or 3, so we don't over-engineer our parts, Generative Designs is better. I included Displacement because my intention is to have enough space below the phone so it can charge it while in the vertical position. Less displacement would mean that I am more likely to be able to fit my charging cord in the phone while in the stand.
I will say that I did make a few edits to the Generative Design model to clear up a few small issues. First, I should have had an obstacle to represent where the charging cord plugs into the phone and an obstacle representing the phone. Since I overlooked that, Generative Design added some material in the gap where the charging cord is supposed to go. I just removed that material because I knew it wouldn't have any impact on the stand's ability to hold a phone.
Secondly, I noticed that a portion of the main post extended beyond the base. I didn't like the way it looked so I edited the model's Free Form feature to clean up that issue. In retrospect, it didn't have a bearing on my ability to print this model and I didn't need to perform this edit.
So this is just a phone stand and may not compare to the complexity of some of the components that you design. However, the ability for Fusion 360's Generative Design to augment my design speaks for itself. In this example, I unintentionally overdesigned a component because I was using standard design techniques. Then with input and direction from me, Fusion 360 improved upon my design. I liked my traditional design, but there was nothing special about it. With Generative Design, I have a more intriguing design that is capable of out-performing my design. I know I titled this blog article about Human v. AI design. Generative Design is a form of AI design, but the process is still driven by the user, and their skills are augmented, and not replaced, by generative design. After this test, I would say that Fusion 360 and I make a really great team. I look forward to other projects where I can leverage this tool to make me a better designer.
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