Hollowing and Latticing Parts to Reduce Material and Energy Usage
Welcome to Chapter 4. As we mentioned in the previous chapter, one key benefit of Additive Manufacturing is the ability to create lightweight parts. In this chapter, we will cover several tools we have within Fusion 360 for hollowing bulky parts and applying lattice structures to the hollowed-out sections to create lightweight versions that we can 3D print, using reduced material and energy.
We will start by talking about the various 3D printing technologies and how we can hollow parts depending on the technology. After that, we will focus on creating drainage holes so that the parts we 3D print using resin or powder can be removed once the printing process is complete. Finally, we will discuss the various tools we have at our disposal for creating lattices.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- Hollowing parts
- Creating drainage holes
- Creating solid and volumetric lattices