Since few years, additive manufacturing is used not only to manufacture prototypes but also functional products in many applications as aircraft, dental restorations, medical implants and automotive sectors. The Electron Beam Melting (EBM) process is considered in this study. Using an EBM process and considering overhang parts, support structures are required to improve the heat energy dissipation and to reduce the geometric defects as curling or warping, the loss of thickness and the side loss. A methodology for designing and optimizing support structures is proposed in the presented work. A contact-free support structures were applied in the experiments. An enhancement is observed for reducing geometric defects but such as support structures are not optimized (material and manufacturing). Therefore, another types of support structures are proposed and used in experiments to valid their efficiency. A good enhancement is observed analysing the overhang parts manufactured with proposed support structures. Using the proposed support structures, the geometric defects as curling and the loss of thickness are eliminated and the side loss is reduced with a good reproducibility of the CAD at the side. Experimental results prove the efficiency of the proposed support structures concept which could be implemented in industrial software.