Fabian Alefeld hosts Pan Michaleris, founder of PanOptimization (PanX), and Erik Denlinger, co-founder and chief engineer, to discuss the evolution and role of simulation and finite element analysis (FEA) in additive manufacturing. Pan shares his background as a Penn State professor and entrepreneur (including a prior company acquired by Autodesk) and explains how simulation helps reduce costly trial-and-error builds by predicting distortion, temperature, stress, buckling, cracking, and recoater risks, while moving toward closed-loop manufacturing-to-design workflows and property prediction. Erik outlines PanX’s commercial capabilities - fast thermo-mechanical simulation for very large parts, distortion compensation, and dwell-time optimization - and describes proof-of-concept work on controlling melt quality and hardness via parameter modulation. They cover adoption in aerospace/defense and new space, qualification implications, integration with build-prep workflows (e.g., EOS/Velosis), and cautious, validation-focused views on AI surrogate models.

00:00 Welcome and Episode Preview

01:13 Meet Pan and Erik

01:59 Pan’s Journey to PanX

03:59 Erik’s Origin Story

05:10 FEA History and the Elephant Test

08:32 Why Additive Needs Simulation

10:23 Closing the Design Manufacturing Loop

14:33 PanX Today Core Capabilities

17:30 From Distortion to Material Properties

20:25 Making Simulation Usable for Engineers

27:06 Workflow Integration and Automation

29:44 From Failures to Design

30:41 Who Uses PanX Today

32:41 Simulation for Qualification

35:17 Layerwise Parameter Control

38:51 Why FEA Is Hard

41:38 AI and Surrogate Models

46:53 Future Material Tailoring

48:37 Roadmap Workflow Integration

52:27 Closing Thoughts and Wrap