COMPANY HIGHLIGHTS
Materialise Joins the FEATURE Project
September 14, 2026
Scope: Develop a simulation- and data-based solution for the automated, configurable, and resource-optimized design of support structures for additive manufacturing in aerospace.
FEATURE is a joint project with partners from industry and research under the leadership of worldiety GmbH. The project is funded by Bremer Aufbau-Bank (BAB) and the Senator for Economic Affairs, Ports and Transformation of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen as part of the Aerospace Research Program (LuRaFo), co-financed by the European Union.
Project partners: Präwest, worldiety, IWT Leibniz-Institut für Werkstofforientierte Technologien, ISEMP.
Project funding
Project partners
Lightweight additively manufactured structures have great potential for weight and resource savings, two characteristics that are especially valuable in the aerospace industry.
At the same time, the design of support structures is still strongly influenced by expert knowledge, and they are often oversized for safety reasons. Although these supports are indispensable for thermally and mechanically stabilizing components during construction, they lead to increased material consumption, longer construction times, greater rework effort, and a worse CO₂ balance.
This is exactly where FEATURE comes in. The project examines the entire life cycle of support structures, including mechanical load-bearing capacity, depowdering. removability, cost-effectiveness, and environmental impact.
On this basis, simulation models, ML-supported decision-making logic, and an intuitive software application are in development, enabling even less-experienced users to make informed decisions about the appropriate support strategy. The aim is a simpler, more scalable, and more resource-efficient process for preparing metal 3D printing.
Scope of the sub-project
For Materialise, the project focuses on further developing the digital process preparation for metal 3D printing. Together with our partners, we are working to automate support design, combining simulation-based insights, empirical knowledge, and data-driven recommendations. Support strategies should not only be safe and component-specific but also optimized for material use, process time, post-processing, and sustainability.
Another central goal is to translate the project results into usable software modules for our own portfolio. The methods and algorithms we develop will also be designed to integrate with existing solutions, such as Magics, and with modular, API-based software environments in the future. In this way, we strengthen both our software expertise and our production site in Bremen, creating the basis for more efficient, scalable AM processes in the aerospace industry.
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