In this class, Autodesk and GKN Aerospace will present how you can use Autodesk Fusion 360 software as a start-to-finish powerhouse for metal additive design and manufacturing. Starting with generative design, we can quickly explore possible print orientations and material possibilities, and build in automated design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) best practices to create designs that are optimized for structural performance, while minimizing the amount of required post processing. Once a design is selected, we’ll show how we can use the Additive Build Extension in Autodesk Fusion 360 to quickly create highly customizable support templates to generate intelligent support setups with a single click, and export directly to a powder bed additive printer for manufacturing.

It was a Friday morning, just before lunch, when a Teams message dinged: "RED ALERT!" Little did the speaker know that in less than a week the shop would be cutting metal on an innovative new suspension design created with the use of Autodesk design and manufacturing toolsets in Autodesk Fusion 360 and Inventor software. Exploring multiple design technologies—including Generative Design, Shape Generator, and finite element analysis (FEA) tools with Inventor Nastran software—a team collaborated to design and manufacture a new truck suspension prototype that shaved an unheard-of 20% off the weight of the suspension assembly. Three weeks later, the new prototype was on the showroom floor at a national truck show. How did we get there? What technologies did we use? And how did we choose one technology over another? This case study will retrace our steps and help you identify decision points you can apply in your own design scenarios. Most of all, this story will showcase the possibilities Autodesk design tools open up.

Discover the advantages Autodesk's new generative techniques have over well-known optimization methods. We’ll explain this using two next-generation technologies: Generative Modeling and Generative Design. The session will give you a solid understanding of differences and how to apply the two techniques. You’ll learn how to verify results in the simulation environment of Autodesk Fusion 360 and Inventor Nastran software, and how to interpret safety factors and von Mises stress values. Safely removing a significant amount of material without fear of structural failure is not easy, but you’ll see how to do it easily and safely. You’ll learn how to use Autodesk Fusion 360 to increase product-development agility and optimize the design-to-manufacturing process. Generative Design capabilities are in Autodesk Fusion 360 and Inventor software. Cloud collaboration makes it possible to verify one design in different Autodesk software systems. You’ll also have the opportunity to get your questions directly to the people creating new features.

Over the last several years the speaker has taught several classes on Generative Design. This year, we’ll look at one of the newer options of doing a flow analysis using Generative Design. This process allows the user to analyze the flow of liquids through the open areas of a model and review where the pressure drops can happen. This is done using an existing model in Autodesk Fusion 360 software. We’ll look at the process, taking a model and identifying the voids and empty areas where the flow comes from and how it passes through the parts. This uses the Generative Design tools and processes to set up your file and cloud analysis to help with the calculations and simulation of the files.

Before now, learning about small satellites was open to a limited number of people, such as aerospace undergraduate or graduate students. On top of that, its complexity created hurdles to understanding it unless you had an engineering background. Plus, it required a significant amount of time to go through. The Autodesk Fusion 360 software has enabled us to develop small satellite training that everyone can learn in a short period of time. In HEPTA-Sat training—designed to teach students about the design and development of small satellites—we use Team of Autodesk Fusion 360 to share information and design, and to simulate modeling. Moreover, we adjust electronic board and CAE, and add elements of generative design. We’ll demonstrate how Autodesk Fusion 360 streamlines processes, fosters innovation, and improves learning.

The productivity crisis is well known, and numerous industry reports identify the issues and scale of the opportunity. Boosting productivity is the greatest chance the sector has to transform itself—it’s the one lever that would automatically help address sustainability, the skills gap, rising costs, and pressure on resources. This session will cover dramatic advances in business outcomes that are now being made by combining technologies. Algorithmic and computational design, industrialized construction, use of robotics, and on-site automation are being deployed together, already demonstrating how schedules can be halved using far fewer operatives, achieving higher quality and safety, with lower carbon. However, this has required new relationships and procurement strategies. As well as showing real-world examples, this session will also consider how roles, business models, incentives, and value propositions will need to adapt if the industry is to make the necessary change.

Generative Modeling is a brand-new feature in Autodesk Fusion 360 software that offers up creative design solutions in canvas in a matter of minutes. Users simply let the software know where the shape they want to create should be, and Generative Modeling will automatically come up with a variety of different suggestions for shapes. Unlike the generative design technology that has come before, Generative Modeling requires no detailed setup information from the user. Just click the faces to connect and obstacles to avoid, press go, and see multiple creative possibilities start to take shape in real time. In this case study, you’ll get a firsthand view of how two designers have used Generative Modeling to expand their creativity and explore possibilities in two very different applications. From initial concept all the way through to manufacturing. Their stories help show the advantages that an automated design tool like Generative Modeling can provide.

Have you ever spent time iterating conceptual designs of a project to realize it’s not the preferred layout, or, even worse, it’s not the optimal design? Ambitious targets for high-quality, resilient, sustainable infrastructure require accelerated digital transformation. Join our case study that examines the use of generative design in the horizontal infrastructure space, specifically applying it to the layout and design of a rail maintenance facility. By combining the use of Civil 3D software for optimization and Dynamo for computational design, we’ll explore solutions to complex design problems—helping to make a more informed final design decision closer to the beginning of the project. By the end of the session, you’ll see that, combined with setting parameters, design automation tools reduce repetitive manual work and demonstrate operational efficiencies, allowing more time to innovate and focus on design accuracy and quality while improving business growth and profitability.

What happens when some enthusiastic software developers team up with a few innovative mechanical designers? Henderson Engineers is an MEP design firm that’s been working on developing a modular DFMA (design for manufacture and assembly) air duct system for a while now, and has developed some clever Revit families and Dynamo scripts to help its designers model them. The firm joined forces with EvolveLAB, a building information modeling (BIM) consulting and software development company, to create a Revit add-in that focuses on the real-time generative design of these modular duct layouts. In this session, we’ll review how these companies used some unique properties of the Revit API to create a co-authoring system that allows a mechanical design to sketch out a main duct layout in Revit while the computer simultaneously and continually produces the most optimal layout using the DFMA kit of parts for that sketch—which is then finalized and converted into a fully connected Revit duct system.

Join Autodesk CEO Carl Bass and CTO Jeff Kowalski as they present the trends and forces shaping the future of making things. Carl will talk about new ways to communicate and even collaborate with our computers, which are blurring the lines between the digital and physical worlds. Jeff will explore how weêre bringing life to design through robust design taxonomies, generative design, and our emerging power to create things that can sense, respond, and collaborate.

We all know the people who possess seemingly superpowers that enable them to get the job done no matter what. One of our most powerful tools, the digital world, can bring out the superhero in all of us.
Want to go back to your office ready to save the day? Are you ready to be the office superhero? If so, then this session is for you.
As digital technologies such as generative design, augmented reality, the internet of things (IoT), and artificial intelligence transform the processes of design and creation; what will the impact be?
 Are these technologies changing the way we approach and answer questions about the best way to design or build something?
 What does this change mean for living, working, and designing in the modern age?
 Join Autodesk Explorer-in-Residence, Jonathan Knowles, and special guests from Amazon, Intel, Microsoft, HP, Lenovo, and Dell for a fascinating conversation about how this new era is shaping the future of how things are made.

As generative design, AI, and IoT usher in the "Augmented Age," our tools are becoming radically more useful by amplifying our natural abilities. Join Autodesk Distinguished Research Scientist Erin Bradner, and special guests from Dell, Frame, Intel, HP, Lenovo, and Nvidia for a fascinating conversation about how this new era is shaping the future of how things are made.

Arrive early for drinks, hors d'oeuvres, and a good seat.