Winners of 2020 Design for Additive Manufacturing Challenge Virtually Announced

During the 8th edition of the Additive World Conference, chairman of the Jury, Ultimaker’s Steven van de Staak, announced K3D and Younes Chahid as winners of the Additive World Design for Additive Manufacturing Challenge 2020. All finalists, three in the student category and three professionals, pitched their designs in a video for the six-member jury. After deliberation they made a unanimous and well-advised selection in both categories. The winning designs, a "Laser Welding Head" and a "Hip Implants Stem Design," are use cases of industrial 3D metal printing.

In the student category the first prize went to Younes Chahid from BiometicAM based in the United Kingdom with his Hip Implant Stem design. This unctional application improves patients’ lives by shortening operation times as well as recovery times. The design of the structure is fully optimized with varying lattice densities and thicknesses for optimal bone ingrowth. The part can only be produced using metal additive manufacturing and in addition, is designed to print without supports, capable for being nested to maximize the total number of parts per build and also lowering the total cost per part to allow for democratizing this for patients around the world. 

The winner of the professional category is K3D of The Netherlands, winning this contest the second year in the row. K3D CTO Jaap Bulsink presented the Laser Welding Head they developed for Hittech Bihca, supplier of precision components.  Improved performance, functional integration, conformal cooling channels, light-weighting and optimized local porosities are all features of this application. 

An honorable mention went to Nina Uppenkamp from the SMS Group in Germany. Her redesigned Media Block design is a demonstration of a manifold that is optimized for metal additive manufacturing. The original part and the redesigned part were functionally tested and compared. 

All finalists get a free licence of Altair Inspire and Autodesk Netfabb software. Younes Chahid, as student winner, has won an Ultimaker 2+ printer while the team of K3D will receive an Ultimaker S3. Both winners will also receive a 3D printing starter-pack from MakerPoint.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.