Additive manufacturing offers several unique and important advantages, such as speed, design freedom, and affordability in low volumes. However, one of the major obstacles to the widespread adoption of the manufacturing process is part strength.Because the 3D printing process constructs parts one layer at a time, it can produce weaknesses throughout the part, as well as specific defects like layer lines and deformations. But how serious is this limitation? How strong are 3D printed parts compared to molded parts? And is the process only suitable for flimsy prototypes or cannot be used for more important applications?This article asks the question “How strong are 3D printed parts” with a particular focus on FDM 3D printing, looking at how users can improve their 3D printed part strength without turning to other processes.&nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr">How Strong Are FDM 3D Printed Parts?</h2><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzM1OTEyNjA5MTczLTNkX3ByaW50ZXJfY3JlYXRpbmdfYmx1ZV9vYmplY3QuanBnIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">FDM parts are not as strong as some other plastic partsFused Deposition Modeling (FDM), also known as Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), produces parts with varying strength based on material choice, print settings, and design. This process involves depositing molten thermoplastic layer by layer, creating unique mechanical properties. &nbsp;Material selection is crucial. PLA is strong but brittle, making it suitable for rigid, non-load-bearing applications. ABS offers better impact resistance but is less stiff. PETG balances flexibility and toughness, while advanced materials like nylon, polycarbonate, and carbon-fiber-reinforced filaments provide exceptional strength and durability. Industrial-grade filaments like PEEK and ULTEM are used in automotive and aerospace due to their superior mechanical properties and heat resistance.[1] &nbsp;Despite these strengths, FDM parts have inherent weaknesses. The most notable is anisotropy—parts are strongest along the horizontal plane but weakest between layers, where delamination can occur. Poor adhesion between layers reduces tensile and shear strength, making proper print settings essential. &nbsp;Print orientation, infill density, wall thickness, and post-processing methods like annealing can mitigate these weaknesses. Structural design improvements such as fillets at stress points also enhance durability. &nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr">Other 3D Printing Technologies</h2>The table below looks at how alternative 3D printing technologies compare to FDM in terms of part strength. While vat photopolymerization 3D printers are often comparable in price to extrusion printers, other technologies can be significantly more expensive.<div dir="ltr" align="left"><table><tbody><tr><td>Technology</td><td>Typical Part Strength</td><td>Cost</td></tr><tr><td>FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling)</td><td>Moderate; strong along layers, weaker between layers</td><td>Low to Medium</td></tr><tr><td>Vat Photopolymerization (SLA/DLP)</td><td>High surface detail, brittle unless using engineering resins</td><td>Low to Medium</td></tr><tr><td>SLS (Selective Laser Sintering)</td><td>High; durable, isotropic parts with good mechanical properties</td><td>High</td></tr><tr><td>Material Jetting</td><td>Moderate to high; brittle unless reinforced</td><td>High to Very High</td></tr><tr><td>Metal (e.g., DMLS, SLM)</td><td>Very high; comparable to traditionally manufactured metal parts</td><td>Very High</td></tr></tbody></table></div><h2 dir="ltr">Are 3D Printed Parts as Strong as Molded Parts?</h2><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzM1OTEyNjIxMDAyLWJvdHRsZV9tb2xkX2Rlc2lnbi5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="molding">Holding typically produces strong plastic partsFDM 3D printed parts are generally not as strong as injection molded parts due to differences in how they are made. Injection molding produces solid, homogeneous parts with consistent mechanical properties, while FDM creates objects layer by layer, introducing potential weak points between layers.FDM parts are strongest along the horizontal plane but are prone to delamination when stressed along the vertical axis.[2] In contrast, injection molded parts have uniform strength throughout. Material selection also plays a role; while FDM can print strong materials like nylon and carbon-fiber composites, injection molding supports a wider range of high-strength polymers.However, with optimized print settings, high-performance filaments, and post-processing techniques, FDM parts can approach the strength of injection molded parts in some applications.<h2 dir="ltr">The Strongest 3D Printing Materials</h2>Material selection plays an important role in achieving strong 3D printed parts. Here we look at the strongest affordable 3D printing filaments and also the strongest engineering filaments, which are more expensive and can only be used on premium machines.<h3 dir="ltr">Strong Consumer-Level Materials</h3><ul><li dir="ltr">PETG is strong, impact-resistant, and easy to print, making it ideal for functional parts with good flexibility and chemical resistance.</li><li dir="ltr">PLA+ (Enhanced PLA) is more durable and less brittle than regular PLA, while retaining ease of printing and affordability.</li><li dir="ltr">Nylon (Polyamide) is tough, wear-resistant, and strong, though it requires a heated bed and controlled environment for best results.</li><li dir="ltr">ABS is durable and impact-resistant, suitable for mechanical parts, though it requires good ventilation due to odor and warping risks.</li><li dir="ltr">Polycarbonate (PC Blend) is extremely strong and heat-resistant, with affordable blends offering easier printing on standard FDM printers.</li></ul><h3 dir="ltr">Strong Engineering Materials</h3><ul><li dir="ltr">PEEK is an ultra-strong, high-temperature-resistant material often used in aerospace and medical applications but requires specialized printers.</li><li dir="ltr">ULTEM (PEI) offers exceptional strength, heat resistance, and chemical stability, ideal for demanding industrial applications.</li><li dir="ltr">Carbon-fiber-reinforced filaments, like nylon or PETG composites, provide lightweight yet rigid parts suitable for structural use.</li><li dir="ltr">Polycarbonate (pure) delivers high strength, toughness, and heat resistance, ideal for engineering-grade parts but demands precise print settings.</li><li dir="ltr">Nylon 12CF (Carbon-Fiber Nylon 12) combines the toughness of nylon with the rigidity of carbon fiber, excellent for high-stress applications.</li></ul>Recommended reading: <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/peek-3d-printer" target="_blank">PEEK 3D Printing: Unlocking the Potential of High-Performance Polymers</a><h2 dir="ltr">How to Make 3D Printed Parts Stronger</h2><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzM1OTEyNjI5OTEyLTNkX3ByaW50ZWRfZ3JpZF9wYXR0ZXJucy5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="infill">Adjusting infill pattern and density is one way to improve 3D printed part strength<h3 dir="ltr">Part Design</h3>Create strong 3D printed parts with thoughtful CAD design focused on minimizing stress points and distributing loads effectively. Avoid sharp corners, which concentrate stress and can lead to cracking. Instead, use fillets or chamfers to create smoother transitions. Reinforce key areas with ribs, gussets, or thicker sections to increase structural integrity without significantly adding weight.Consider load paths and how forces will act on the part. Use organic, curved shapes when possible, as they better handle distributed forces. Design for symmetry and balanced geometry to prevent warping and mechanical failure.<h3 dir="ltr">Infill Patterns</h3>Infill patterns play a critical role in determining the strength of 3D printed parts. For maximum mechanical strength, high-strength infill patterns like cubic and gyroid are commonly used.&nbsp;The basic grid pattern provides adequate strength along both axes due to its crisscross structure, making it ideal for load-bearing parts. However, the cubic pattern offers similar strength while being more material-efficient. <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/gyroid-infill">Gyroid infill</a> stands out for its continuous, wavy structure, providing isotropic strength while reducing weight. &nbsp;For flexible materials like TPU, one of the best infill patterns is the concentric pattern. Its circular layers mimic natural structures, allowing for uniform flexibility and resistance to tearing. This pattern evenly distributes stresses, making it ideal for wearable or impact-resistant parts.<h3 dir="ltr">Other 3D Printer Settings</h3>Print orientation greatly affects strength. Align parts so critical features face the strongest print axis, parallel to the print bed. Additionally, slower print speeds improve layer bonding by allowing better material adhesion. Higher nozzle temperatures enhance interlayer strength but should stay within material limits to prevent stringing or overheating.Increasing wall thickness and enabling more perimeter shells boosts part durability. Use a lower layer height for finer bonding, though this extends print time. Adjusting the cooling fan speed—lower or off for materials like ABS—helps prevent weak layer adhesion. Correct bed leveling and proper extrusion settings also ensure consistent, strong prints.<h3 dir="ltr">Post-Processing Techniques</h3>Post-processing can significantly enhance the strength of 3D printed parts. Annealing is a common method where parts are heated in an oven to relieve internal stresses and improve layer adhesion. For materials like PLA, annealing at around 80-100°C can increase heat resistance and tensile strength, though it may cause slight warping. Longer annealing times are particularly effective on carbon fiber-reinforced filaments.[3]Coatings like epoxy resin or polyurethane create a protective outer layer, boosting impact resistance, waterproofing, and surface finish. Applying fiberglass or carbon-fiber wraps can reinforce critical areas.That being said, post-processing for part strength is more critical for non-extrusion processes. For instance, vat photopolymerization generally requires post-curing for stronger parts, while most metal printing technologies require extensive heat treatment to produce high-quality parts.Recommended reading: <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/the-ultimate-guide-to-3d-printing-post-processing-techniques" target="_blank">The Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing Post-Processing Techniques</a><h2 dir="ltr">How to Calculate the Strength of a Printed Object</h2><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzM1OTEyNjM5NTUyLXRlbnNpbGVfdGVzdF9zYW1wbGUuanBnIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="tensile">Standardized tensile strength testing can determine the pulling resistance of printed partsTesting the strength of 3D printed parts involves several key methods, each targeting specific mechanical properties like tensile, impact, and flexural strength. These tests ensure that printed components meet performance requirements for real-world applications.<h3 dir="ltr">Tensile Strength Testing&nbsp;</h3>Tensile strength measures a material’s resistance to being pulled apart. Standardized test specimens, typically shaped like dog bones, are printed according to ASTM D638 or ISO 527 standards. The test involves placing the specimen in a tensile testing machine, where controlled pulling force is applied until failure occurs. The maximum stress endured before breaking indicates tensile strength.&nbsp;Consider factors like print orientation, layer height, and material type, as tensile strength is often weakest along the Z-axis due to layer adhesion. Comparing results from different orientations can highlight how print settings affect structural integrity.<h3 dir="ltr">Impact Strength Testing</h3>Impact strength tests measure a material’s ability to absorb energy during sudden impacts. A common method is the Charpy or Izod impact test, where a notched test specimen is struck by a swinging pendulum. The energy absorbed during fracture indicates the material's toughness.For 3D printed parts, ensure consistent print settings and part orientation to obtain accurate results. Tough materials like nylon, PETG, and polycarbonate usually excel in these tests, while PLA tends to be brittle. Adding notches simulates real-world stress concentrators, making the test more representative.<h3 dir="ltr">Flexural Strength Testing &nbsp;</h3>Flexural strength indicates a material’s resistance to bending forces. The three-point bending test is commonly used, where a printed specimen is supported at two ends while a force is applied at the center until it breaks. ASTM D790 provides standard guidelines for this test.&nbsp;Flexural testing highlights how well a material handles compressive and tensile forces simultaneously. For FDM parts, print orientation matters: parts printed with layers aligned along the bending axis perform better. Materials like ABS and carbon-fiber composites offer high flexural strength, making them suitable for load-bearing applications.Recommended reading: <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/3d-printing-problems" target="_blank">How to Solve Common 3D Printing Problems</a><h2 dir="ltr">Conclusion</h2>On the whole, the strength of 3D printed parts depends on factors like printing technology, material selection, design, and process settings. While FDM parts are inherently weaker along layer lines due to anisotropic properties, careful design, proper orientation, and use of advanced materials like fiber-reinforced filaments can significantly boost strength. Post-processing methods such as annealing and coating further enhance durability.&nbsp;Ultimately, 3D printed parts can be remarkably strong when engineered and manufactured correctly, rivaling traditional manufacturing methods in many applications from prototyping to end-use production.<h2 dir="ltr">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>What factors determine the strength of 3D printed parts?Part strength depends on factors such as the material used, print orientation, layer adhesion, infill pattern, and wall thickness. Post-processing techniques like annealing or applying protective coatings can further enhance strength.Which 3D printing technology produces the strongest parts?Metal 3D printing (including processes like DMLS/SLM) produces the strongest parts, followed by industrial processes like SLS for plastics due to its isotropic properties. FDM can also create strong parts with the right machinery, materials, and print settings.How can I increase the strength of FDM 3D printed parts?Use strong filaments like fiber-reinforced nylon, optimize print orientation, use a strong infill pattern, and increase wall thickness. Post-processing methods like epoxy coating or annealing can also improve strength.How are 3D printed parts tested for strength?Common tests include tensile testing (pulling force), impact testing (sudden force resistance), and flexural testing (bending resistance). These tests follow ASTM or ISO standards for consistent, accurate results.<h2 dir="ltr">References</h2>[1] Kafi A, Wu H, Langston J, Atak O, Kim H, Kim S, Fahy WP, Reber R, Misasi J, Bateman S, Koo JH. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/app.49117" target="_blank">Evaluation of additively manufactured ultraperformance polymers to use as thermal protection systems for spacecraft</a>. Journal of Applied Polymer Science. 2020 Oct 5;137(37):49117.[2] Ahn SH, Baek C, Lee S, Ahn IS. <a href="https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217979203019241" target="_blank">Anisotropic tensile failure model of rapid prototyping parts-fused deposition modeling (FDM)</a>. International Journal of Modern Physics B. 2003 Apr 10;17(08n09):1510-6.[3] Stojković JR, Turudija R, Vitković N, Górski F, Păcurar A, Pleşa A, Ianoşi-Andreeva-Dimitrova A, Păcurar R. <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/16/13/4574" target="_blank">An experimental study on the impact of layer height and annealing parameters on the tensile strength and dimensional accuracy of FDM 3D printed parts</a>. Materials. 2023 Jun 25;16(13):4574.

How strong are 3D printed parts compared to injection molded parts?

Part strength is sometimes seen as a weakness of 3D printing. But how strong are 3D printed parts really, especially compared to injection molding?

How Strong Are 3D Printed Parts? A Comprehensive Analysis

<h2 id="isPasted">Some Historical Perspective</h2>The relationship between physical engineering and the programmable computer is as old as the computer itself. The reality is that, for most of us, crunching lots of numbers by hand is frustrating, time-consuming, and error-prone.The British government of the 1820s agreed, opting to fund the early development of Charles Babbage&#39;s difference engines. These were visually striking machines: large mechanical computers, some capable of solving 7th order polynomials, that were intended to dramatically reduce the cost of production of tabulated trigonometric and logarithmic functions &mdash; the kind that were incredibly useful to scientists, engineers and navigators in the immediate aftermath of the Industrial Revolution.Fast forward to 1945, and we see the first glimpse of modernity: ENIAC, the world&#39;s first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer. If you&#39;re curious as to what was it designed for, the answer is the computation of artillery and mortar firing tables; a task that involves exactly the kind of Newtonian mechanics calculations that will be familiar to any undergraduate mechanical or aerospace engineering student (see: Mayevski&#39;s <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Trait%C3%A9_de_balistique_ext%C3%A9rieure.html?id=jE_zAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y" target="_blank">Trait&eacute; de balistique ext&eacute;rierure&nbsp;</a>, or the US Army Ballistic Research Laboratories&#39; <a href="https://asset-pdf.scinapse.io/prod/77299953/77299953.pdf" target="_blank">The Production of Firing Tables for Cannon Artillery</a>).Just a decade or so after ENIAC, IBM drew up its first specifications for a new programming language, The IBM Mathematical Formula Translating System, familiar to many of us as FORTRAN. Developed expressly for science and engineering, FORTRAN is a true titan of the scientific computing world. If you&#39;ve ever fired up MATLAB, analysed a load-case with an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_element_method" target="_blank">FEA</a> package, or run some new geometry in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_fluid_dynamics" target="_blank">CFD</a> &mdash; then it&#39;s almost certain that FORTRAN is involved in that stack somewhere, even six or seven decades on.<hr><h2 id="isPasted">Why Software Matters For Hardware</h2>The advantages of using digital computers in the physical engineering disciplines are both marked and multifarious, and I hope somewhat obvious.At a low level, these advantages can be quite straightforward. They include things like providing engineers with the ability to perform large numbers of calculations with little to no risk of human error. Think of something like repeated matrix multiplication, perhaps as part of a kinematics problem. How confident would you be in getting every step of that calculation right, without accidentally picking up a value one row down or one column across from where you intended? Thankfully, with the help of a few lines of FORTRAN, MATLAB, or Python, the computer can perform these calculations on your behalf, perhaps billions of times, without the threat of inconsistency or human error. At least... <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug" target="_blank">almost all of the time.</a>At a higher level, however, these advantages are even more pronounced. They are the culmination of decades of work across several disciplines; the output of engineers, scientists and mathematicians who have designed, implemented, and shared computational techniques that address a myriad of challenging problems &mdash; from solving partial differential equations at scale, enabling modern FEA and CFD, through to the development of boundary representation solid modelling techniques that enable modern CAD systems. The convergence of these technologies has revolutionised engineering; accelerating development cycles, reducing the need for physical testing, and helping the world&#39;s engineers improve the quality and performance of everything from ships to spacecraft.As an illustration, think of the draughting process. For many engineering professionals who started their careers prior to the 1990s, draughting work would have still involved a drawing board, pens, and paper, cellulose, and/or linen. In the event of a mistake, the draughtsperson would have had to break out the scalpel or Tipp-Ex to &#39;erase&#39; the error, or issue an entirely separate drawing amendment to be paired with the original documents. With modern CAD systems, minor drawing modifications completed prior to release go completely unnoticed, and subsequent amendments can be as simple as a quick tweak and a brief change order &mdash; no redrawing of anything, no folder of amendments.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjg1NTI3MDQ5MjY0LUhXRHJhd2luZ09mZmljZS5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption id="isPasted">The Harland &amp; Wolff Drawing Office, Belfast, at some point during the 1960s or 1970s. My father served part of his apprenticeship in this room a decade or two later. Maritime Belfast/National Museums Northern Ireland</figcaption>Better yet, imagine the difference in resource requirement and development cycle times for something like a turbocharger. If every minor tweak to blade or housing geometry requires an entire manufacture, assembly, and balancing routine before the new design makes it to the gas stand, every iteration will fall weeks behind and cost significantly more to explore than its simulation-driven counterpart &mdash; where a design change could make it to CFD in a matter of minutes. This is before we even consider the introduction of something like mathematical optimisation into this loop, where the responsible engineer could define their objective function, their variables, and their constraints, and conceivably let the computer play tunes with the geometry, feed that into the simulation, interrogate the results, then rinse and repeat until it reaches an optimum. Ultimately, well correlated models, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong" id="isPasted" target="_blank">even if wrong</a>, are incredibly useful.<hr><h2 id="isPasted">Why Hardware Matters for Everyone</h2>So computers are wonderful tools, and so are the niche software packages we run on them, but so what? Well, I believe we now find ourselves at a critical point in both the trajectory of engineering as a discipline, and in its utility as a mechanism for improving our lives as a species. We have a lot of *very* active engineering fields right now, with a lot of important problems to address &mdash; and in the end, at some point, somebody has to actually make stuff to make things better.For example, it seems to me that we are standing but a few feet forward of the starting line in a new, privately funded space race. We have seen SpaceX engineers repeatedly achieve nothing short of a triumph of control engineering: reversing a rocket onto a barge in the ocean, opening the door to reuse, and as a result, both dramatically reduced space access costs and dramatically increased launch cadence. We have companies like SpinLaunch working to yield orbital access mechanisms that help escape <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition30/tryanny.html" target="_blank">the tyranny of the rocket equation&nbsp;</a>.We have a burgeoning paradigm shift in personal transport, with electric cars, scooters, and e-bikes encroaching further and further on the internal combustion engine&#39;s long-established territory.We have additive manufacturing evolving into a serious, cost-competitive manufacturing technique that can achieve geometries beyond the reach of traditional subtractive approaches, and we have generative design technology helping engineers produce mathematically optimised, often organic-looking solutions to pressing design problems. To see the power of these two in concert, just look at <a href="https://www.czinger.com/" target="_blank">Czinger</a> and <a href="https://www.divergent3d.com/" target="_blank">Divergent</a>.And, of course, we have ever more compelling incentives to overhaul the majority of our civilisation&#39;s energy infrastructure, pushing us to diversify the means by which we generate electricity, fostering the development of improved wind, solar, and &mdash; I hope &mdash; nuclear technologies.In short, we&#39;ve got a lot of real-world engineering to tackle, and plenty of hardware to build.<hr><h2 id="isPasted">Software is Eating the World</h2>Ultimately, it strikes me that the way in which we develop the physical systems around us is changing, and not all our tools yet accommodate this.Despite the arrival of an entire range of engineering software systems in the latter part of the last century, these were typically specialised products, often designed to form improved but effectively like-for-like replacements of an existing way of accomplishing a given task, whether that was replacing the draughtsman and his drawing board with a CAD workstation, or replacing a complex, <a href="https://twitter.com/CalumDouglas1/status/1550594001874698246" target="_blank">stiffness-altering oil pressure measurement apparatus&nbsp;</a>around a bearing with a CFD case.As a result, we find ourselves at a point where, as a profession, we&#39;re equipped with some extremely impressive tools; tools that can help us build the shorter iterative loops that are required to yield accelerated system development.However, it feels like we&#39;re still using these revolutionary tools, developing the technology that is critical to our species&#39; future, inside an operational framework that was designed for slide rules, drawing boards, and row after row of draughtsmen packing a tobacco smoke filled drawing office.Our systems are heavily siloed, our teams often fragmented. We struggle to collaborate across teams, sites, and time zones. We have vast and unstructured knowledge bases that are full of effectively undiscoverable data, put beyond the reach of those who don&#39;t know exactly where to look. And we struggle for visibility &mdash; of tasks, responsibilities, upcoming changes, and most importantly, of our data.Even the big players recognise this. Dassault push <a href="https://discover.3ds.com/reduce-non-value-added-work" target="_blank">research</a> that shows engineers spend 34% of their time performing &#39;non-value-added&#39; work; dominated by the amount of time spent just looking for stuff, trawling through network drives and cluttered inboxes. This same research shows that engineers are typically working with outdated information 20% of the time &mdash; imagine a full day a week, every week, for every member of your team, just being thrown away because of bad input data. This pattern has to change.In fact, for newer hardware companies, I think some things have *already* changed. <a href="https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world" target="_blank">Software is eating the world&nbsp;</a>applies not only to the electronic control of fuel injectors and ignition coils, but to the adoption of software-like management practices, with a focus on short design-build-test loops. I may hate the confusing, jargon-heavy nomenclature of &#39;agile&#39; methodology, but there is some method in the madness.<hr><h2 id="isPasted">Better, More Collaborative Software for Engineering Teams</h2>The future that I see is one where we not only have specialised tools for specific parts of the engineering cycle, but we have a central, engineering specific hub; an operating system that ties these things together.We want to see the world&#39;s physical engineering teams build better products faster; to achieve shorter development cycles, to iterate faster, and to better leverage their internal knowledge &mdash; so that they can achieve their goals, whether that&#39;s kinetic launch, faster cars, or greener energy.We think this will be brought about by transforming how hardware teams communicate, collaborate, and manage technical knowledge. That means better, more connected software; software that focuses on resolving the productivity-killing shortfalls in current engineering process. We think hardware teams should have technical communication mechanisms that are fast, painless, and traceable; that allow new hires to find the information they need, without requiring someone else to go rooting through their inbox for half an hour. We think engineers should be able to see what colleagues are working on, how these items are prioritised, and what&#39;s coming next. We think engineers should be able to annotate drawings, share calculations and schematics, and offer opinions on proposed solutions &mdash; all in real-time, wherever they are, with all that data stored and indexed for easy discoverability down the line.&nbsp;Above all, we think engineers should have a single source of truth to work with; a repository of version-controlled design values, simulation outputs, and performance targets &mdash; whether those are scalar values, or n-dimensional maps.In the end, what we want to see is engineering teams moving beyond the pain of e-mail ping-pong with spreadsheets and presentations, to stop scrawling performance differentiating IP over paper drawings that are destined for the shredder, and to start letting the computers handle the busywork.

Betty Jean Jennings and Fran Bilas at the main ENIAC control panel. Moore School of Electrical Engineering. U.S. Army, ARL Technical Library Archives

The recent history of our physical engineering disciplines is intertwined with computing. The future is too. 

The Future of Hardware is... Better Software

<h2 id="isPasted">Quick Wins</h2>We&#39;ll be looking at three items here that should be broadly universal across any Mechanical Engineering function, and should also be applicable to other disciplines. Our objective is to highlight some minor changes in workflow that can offer a significant benefit for your team. Taking these in order...<hr><h2 id="isPasted">1. Drawings: Datum Tables</h2>This is something I started doing several years ago to combat my own frustration with trying to read other people&#39;s drawings, and I was always surprised that it wasn&#39;t a standard practice in any of the design departments I&#39;ve worked in.Picture the scene: one of your colleagues has just finished off the drawings for a new cylinder head, and they pass them to you for peer review. If your brain works anything like mine, the first things you want to check are all the major datum features. However, when a drawing pack runs to six or seven substantial pages, this turns into a less entertaining, more time-consuming, monochrome version of Where&#39;s Wally? &mdash; which isn&#39;t really what we&#39;re after.For me, the fruit doesn&#39;t hang much lower. Work up a table&dagger; that lists datum features in alphabetical order, list their sheet, list their grid reference, then place the table somewhere easy to find on the drawing. Anyone else lifting the drawings will be able to dive right into reading the important bits, without having to scour the thing for ten minutes before they start actually thinking about the task at hand. This can as simple as Table 1.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjg0MjI1NDYxMjE1LVRhYmxlSW1hZ2UucG5nIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Table 1 &dagger;If you&#39;re so inclined, I also imagine that it should be possible to implement automatic table assembly with a little bit of code. From memory, when I last explored this with CATIA v5 macros, I couldn&#39;t find any reference to datum objects in the object model documentation.<hr><h2 id="isPasted">2. Excel: Named Ranges</h2>As the sort of engineer whose professional home lies in writing code to analyse, simulate, and control physical systems, this point is much closer to my heart. With a few notable use-case exceptions, such as its easily accessed optimisation tools, I basically hate Excel. I consider it to be like the adjustable spanner of the software world: it might work for the task at hand, but it&#39;s still the wrong tool for just about every job.I believe that Excel inadvertently pushes people to construct terribly organised models and analyses that are often borderline unintelligible, and that building a clean solution in Excel requires the adoption of some very considered practice that you would basically get by accident if you did this work in any one of MATLAB, Python, Julia, Fortran etc. &mdash; the list goes on.More specifically, when I&#39;m forced to unpick somebody else&#39;s Excel-based model or analysis, there is one overwhelmingly common piece of practice that makes me want to tear my hair out: an overflowing formula bar, brimming with unnecessary parentheses and mysterious references to <code>!Sheet2&nbsp;</code>and <code>$C$907</code>. Let&#39;s take a real-world example of how unnecessarily messy this can get, even for relatively simple cases, then we&#39;ll move onto cleaning things up.<h3>The Problem</h3>The simple example case I&#39;m going to give here will be familiar to anyone who&#39;s ever designed an engine, a gas strut, or a (hydro)pneumatic suspension system: computing gas pressure in a cylinder of known volume. We&#39;re going to use the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_der_Waals_equation" target="_blank">Van der Waals equation of state,&nbsp;</a>owing to the fact that the ideal gas law is pretty rubbish at approximating the behaviour we&#39;d typically see in any of these systems. The Van der Waal&#39;s equation of state is given by:<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjg0MTY3MzEzOTIyLUVxMS5wbmciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">For simplicity, we&#39;ll take the case for n moles of gas, so this becomes:&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjg0MTY3MzQ0NzcxLUVxMi5wbmciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Where:<ul><li>P denotes pressure.</li><li>V denotes volume.</li><li>n denotes moles of gas.</li><li>R&nbsp;denotes gas constant.</li><li>T denotes gas temperature.</li><li>a denotes Van der Waals constant for intermolecular interaction.</li><li>b denotes Van der Waals constant for real gas molecule volume.</li></ul>In our example scenario, we can pretend that we&#39;re solving for pressure, with all other values known, so we can quickly rearrange as follows:&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjg0MTY3Mzk1NTExLUVxMzQucG5nIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Equation shuffling out of the way, let&#39;s pluck some values from the air and get these plugged into a spreadsheet to see what we&#39;re dealing with. The values we&#39;re going with assume a 10cc volume, 20&deg;C, and enough pure nitrogen fill to generate approximately 86barA.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjg0MjIxMjQ5NDg2LVNjcmVlbnNob3QgMjAyMy0wNS0xNiAxMDA5MTYucG5nIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The typical quick spreadsheet setup leaves us with something that looks like this:&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjg0MTY3NTAxNDA0LTIyMDUxOS0zUXVpY2tXaW5zLU5vTmFtZWRSYW5nZS5wbmciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 730px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">In my view, this isn&#39;t the end of the world; all the referenced cells are close by, and I can pick apart the formula quickly &mdash; but you can already see that extension of this sort of pattern to something more complex will start to cause serious headaches. By the time you&#39;re working with something which has parameters spanning sheets and substantially more complex formulas in play, this method is a nightmare.&nbsp;<h3 id="isPasted">The Solution</h3>Thankfully, a better way forward here is entirely quick and painless: <a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/define-and-use-names-in-formulas-4d0f13ac-53b7-422e-afd2-abd7ff379c64" target="_blank">named ranges.&nbsp;</a>Named ranges effectively allow us to assign variable names of our choosing to these parameters, while also allowing us to configure the scope of the variables, i.e., whether they are visible only on a given worksheet, or whether they&#39;re global across the workbook.Setting a named range on a single value is as easy as clicking the cell in the top-left corner that currently shows cell address, overwriting it with an appropriate value, and hitting enter. There are plenty of other websites that explain how to use the &#39;Name Manager&#39; tools and get the most out of named range usage, but I&#39;ll just show you how much cleaner things look once you&#39;ve converted cell addresses to named ranges:<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjg0MTY3NTI3MDI2LTIyMDUxOS0zUXVpY2tXaW5zLU5hbWVkUmFuZ2UucG5nIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">At least to my mind, this is an immediate and significant improvement. Compared with how it was previously, it is now substantially more straightforward to compare the formula with our target equation above. Any misplaced brackets or indices that might otherwise cause some serious pain to review or debug can now be caught much more readily, and you can move forward with increased confidence that your spready is trustworthy.<hr><h2 id="isPasted">3. Files: Naming Convention</h2>Finally then, the best (and shortest) tip: file naming convention. As far as I&#39;m concerned, there is precisely one correct way to name the sort of files generated by most engineering operations, and that way is as follows:<ul><li><code>YYMMDD-FileName.ext</code></li></ul>For example, the file in our named range scenario might be called something like <code>220519-NamedRangeExample.xlsx</code>.By placing the date at the start of the filename, and by following the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601" target="_blank">ISO8601</a> date component order, lexicographical sorts will yield files in chronological order, irrelevant of when they were copied to the particular directory.Then, by adopting dashes instead of spaces, underscores, or whatever else you might fancy for separation of sections of the file name, you&#39;re making the decision up-front that you simply want to avoid any funnies with respect to how filenames are handled.For example, any files appearing at a web URL will have spaces substituted for <code>%20</code>, which isn&#39;t exactly readable, and underscores can cause issues with both certain platforms and certain indexing systems.&nbsp;

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