## 3 Results and Discussion
### Validation of the Results  
The part was printed on the RENISHAW AM400 machine using stainless steel AISI 316L. After completing the printing process, excess powdered material was safely removed for recycling in future jobs. Then, the printed part was cut from the base plate, which was investigated to observe whether any deformation occurred on the printed part.  
Testing was performed using digital image correlation (DIC). It can be observed in Figure 12 that the resulting deformation was slightly higher than the simulated deformation in Figures 9 and 11. There are many factors that might play a role in such a difference. For instance, computational tools use different approaches and input parameters, which might result in different values. More obviously, the material properties that were employed in the simulation process using the ANSYS and MSC material libraries were the sources of the material properties assigned. The material properties of the printed part differed from the material properties available in the libraries. Further, the meshing of the bodies might have had a significant impact since the calculations were constrained to a limited number of elements. Moreover, heating due to slicing could be a factor in the significant additional deformation of the part.  
Cutting from the base plate was realized using a saw blade, and the maximum displacement was measured as 1.137 mm. The base plate was taken into account as a reference, and the deviation from it was measured.  
Verification by means of a 3D scanner was performed mainly to determine the degree of displacement after printing compared to the CAD model and to verify the functionality of the pre-programmed prestressed state.  
In the first phase of scanning, when the part was still on the base plate, an average deviation of \(-0.210\) mm was achieved, where the largest deviation was recorded on the nose of the part as \(-0.206\) mm, which corresponds to the performed simulations (see Figure 13a). The second phase of the scan took place on already-cut parts that still had  
Figure 11: Stand-alone structural analysis using MSC Simufact.  
Figure 12: Maximum displacement on the left camera (**a**) and on the right camera (**b**).  
supporting elements on them. The achieved average deviation here was 0.229 mm. However, the activation of residual stresses was observed, and the part bent perpendicularly to the base plate and approached the desired shape when the deviation on the nose reached a value of \(-0.005\) mm. The last scan was performed on components free of supporting elements. The removal of supports was done manually, which could have led to an error in the measurement; this error also appeared when the average deviation was measured as \(-0.541\) mm. After removal of the supports, the required tolerance was reached in the part with the elongated holes (see Figure 13b), but the maximum deviation found on the nose was 1.326 mm. The value of the detected maximum deviation was, therefore, close to the result of the DIC measurement (taking into account the fact that maximal deflection is expected in the position where DIC results are not fully available; see Figure 12). That is also why we compare the numerical results with the 3D scanning results.  
A comparison of the numerical results with the experimental results is provided in Table 5. The lowest absolute difference between the numerical results and the experimental results in terms of maximal deflection was around 0.17 mm (11.4%) and was achieved using ANSYS Workbench.