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Equispheres Receives $8 Million from SDTC to Scale Metal 3D Printing Powder Production

Canadian materials science company Equispheres has just announced that it’s received support, and $8 million in funding, from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), which it will use to help scale its metal 3D printing powder production capacity over the next two years.

The SDTC foundation was created by the Government of Canada in order to advance clean technology innovation across the country by funding and supporting entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises that are working to develop, demonstrate, and deploy “globally competitive” clean technology solutions.

SDTC believes that Equispheres’ aluminum alloy powder, which was specifically designed for additive manufacturing and optimized for applications in both the aerospace and automotive industries, can help bring about real-world change.

“Canadian cleantech entrepreneurs are tackling problems across Canada and in every sector. I have never been more positive about the future,” stated Leah Lawrence, the President and CEO of SDTC. “Equipsheres as developed a metal powder that acts as ink for 3D printing and enables automotive and aerospace manufacturers to reduce the weight of their products. With Equispheres’ powder set to remove 100 – 200 kg of mass from an automobile, this would be the equivalent to removing 75 million cars off the road!”

Scanning Electron Microscope photo of Equispheres novel powder.

Aerospace and automotive manufacturers alike have the same mission to reduce their products’ carbon footprint, and weight optimization is key. While 3D printing has certainly been used in these industries many times before, it was not always possible to achieve mass production scale with aluminum alloy powders, which is what Equipsheres specializes in. According to a company press release, these materials also “account for a significant amount of the material demand” in both industries, so a powder that can make stronger, more lightweight parts in a more efficient way is hugely important.

Equispheres provides high performance, mono-sized metal powders, which can fabricate parts that are up to 30% stronger and lighter than those made with other AM powders. In addition to more efficient production, part performance has also been positively impacted with these powders – the release states that the company’s AM powder is anticipated to improve fuel efficiency by over 10% in the automotive industry, was “proven exceptional” in tests run by McGill University, and outperformed in aerospace-ready quality tests.

Equisheres has received major funding for its work in AM powders before, but the timing of this particular award from SDTC “aligns well with other initiatives” the company has been working on in regards to offering a clean technology solution in the aerospace and automotive fields. For example, it put together a consortium that includes a top aerospace company and leading automotive manufacturer in order to use the weight optimization potential of the AM powder to its advantage in order to reduce vehicle weight. But this new funding support from SDTC will allow Equispheres to work with even more partners in the aerospace and automotive industries to “help them realize the benefits of more efficient production and reduced emissions.”

Equispheres CEO, Kevin Nicholds

“We are excited to receive this funding award from the SDTC Foundation. This support from SDTC speaks to the importance of our powder technology as a key to achieving significant emissions reductions in the automotive sector,” said Equispheres CEO Kevin Nicholds. “The funding from SDTC will help Equispheres to continue to accelerate our production capacity and support this important work by our automotive partners.”

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Sintratec Providing 3D Printing Support to Daimler Buses for Service Bases

The commercial vehicles segment of Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler AG has fully integrated 3D printing into the development process and series production workflow for several of its divisions, such as Daimler Trucks North America and Daimler Trucks & Buses; in fact, the latter already features 3D printed parts built into the interior of its buses.

According to its website, Daimler Buses is the “leader in its most important traditional core markets,” and is now expanding its use of 3D printing for bus parts, collaborating with SLS leader Sintratec for the initiative.

“With 3D printing the Daimler bus division can respond quickly, flexibly, economically and environmentally friendly to urgent customer needs,” Ralf Anderhofstadt, the Head of the Center of Competence Additive Manufacturing, Daimler Buses, stated in a Sintratec press release. “The advantages of additive technologies, especially with regards to spare parts, are evident.”

Rather than utilizing external service providers, this coming year Daimler Buses will be setting up its own personal service bases, with the 3D production support of Sintratec. These 3D printing centers, to be used for the fabrication of both individualized components and spare parts, are a smart idea in terms of economics and logistics – it will only take a few days, rather than several months, to manufacture and deliver a 3D printed part, which produces much less waste and costs far less money.

Swiss high-tech company Sintratec develops and manufactures precise SLS 3D printers for professional purposes. The company’s materials are temperature-resistant and resilient, and its technology allows customers plenty of design freedom in creating complex objects for 3D printing.

Sintratec’s first desktop SLS system was successfully crowdfunded on the Indiegogo platform back in 2014, and the company has since moved on to bigger printers, introducing its modular, industrial Sintratec S2 system at last year’s formnext. This affordable, end-to-end SLS solution is perfect for education and training, in addition to fabricating prototype parts and small and medium-sized series.

The smart S2 has a modular construction, with the build chamber inside the Material Core Unit, but easily removable from the Laser Sintering Station. The system also includes an integrated powder mixing function, a Blasting Station and Polishing Station, and an additional Material Core Unit for convenient powder handling.

Now, Sintratec is excited to help contribute to the bus industry’s continuing digitalization. Recently, the S2 system was delivered to the Neu-Ulm, Germany production site of EvoBus GmbH, Daimler AG’s largest European subsidiary. The 3D printer will be used at this location to, as the release states,” convey technological know-how” at Daimler Buses’ new 3D printing centers, and to help advance the development, and optimization, of 3D printing materials.

“Special thanks to the entire EvoBus GmbH team for letting Sintratec participate in this outstanding event and present our vision of the digital factory as well as our Sintratec S2 system,” said Gabor Koppanyi, Sintratec’s Head of Marketing & Sales. “We are very proud of this partnership and are looking forward to more fantastic projects where we can shape the future together.”

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[Images provided by Sintratec]

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Carbon and Ford Expanding Collaboration for Automotive 3D Printing Solutions

HVAC Lever Arm

Digital manufacturing company Carbon and the Ford Motor Company, which recently announced the opening of its new Advanced Manufacturing Center in Michigan, have revealed that they are expanding their existing collaboration, which began in 2015 around the time that Silicon Valley-based Carbon emerged from stealth mode with its innovative CLIP technology. The original partnership centered around materials research and using 3D printing for current and future vehicle design, and now the two companies will be working together to design and digitally manufacture several new durable, end-use automotive parts.

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Ford Motor Company and are excited about the many opportunities to leverage the power of digital manufacturing to deliver durable, end-use parts with similar – or better – properties as injection molded parts. The automotive industry shows significant promise for using digital fabrication at scale, and our work with Ford is a perfect example of the kind of innovation you can achieve when you design on the means of production,” said Dr. Joseph DeSimone, the CEO and Co-Founder of Carbon.

Parking Brake Bracket

This week, Carbon, which has worked in the automotive sector in the past, revealed for the first time some of the new 3D printed polymer parts it produced for Ford, which was recognized for its work in automotive 3D printing in the fall as a triple finalist in the Automotive Innovation Awards Competition, which is held by the Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE).

Carbon used its robust 3D printers, proprietary Digital Light Synthesis (DLS) technology, and durable EPX (epoxy) 82 material to create several automotive parts, including HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Cooling) Lever Arm Service Parts for the Ford Focus, Ford F-150 Raptor Auxiliary Plugs for a niche market, and Ford Mustang GT500 Electric Parking Brake Brackets.

Together, Carbon and Ford jointly presented the new applications at the Additive Manufacturing for Automotive Workshop, which is part of the 2019 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) held in Detroit this week.

When it comes to materials, Carbon knows what it’s talking about – the company’s mission is to reinvent how we design, engineer, manufacture, and deliver polymer products. Its EPX 82 material, part of its epoxy resin family, was a perfect choice for 3D printing the new automotive parts.

The components not only passed the rigorous performance standards set down by Ford for their selected applications, but they were also able to hold up well in terms of critical requirements, like fluid and chemical resistance, flammability (ISO 3795), short- and long-term heat exposures, interior weathering, UV stability, and fogging (SAEJ1756).

Carbon has been a major power player in the 3D printing field since it arrived on the scene. Now, through some of its more high-profile partnerships with companies such as Vitamix, Johnson & Johnson, adidas, and Ford, the company is moving past 3D printing and, in its own words, on “to full-scale digital manufacturing” by working with its customers to create high quality, well-made products across multiple industries.

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[Images provided by Carbon]

3D Printing an Improved DMLS Automotive Component Using Topology Optimization and DfAM

Engineers frequently use topology optimization to optimize the design and layout of parts to create lightweight and optimized structures. The technology often results in organic, complex shapes, however, which can be difficult to produce using traditional manufacturing methods. That’s why 3D printing pairs so well with topology optimization – it allows for the kind of freedom of design necessary to create those complex shapes. In a paper entitled “Application of Topology Optimization and Design for Additive Manufacturing Guidelines on an Automotive Component,” a group of researchers uses topology optimization to create a lightweight automotive component “while conforming to additive manufacturing constraints related to overhanging features and unsupported surfaces when using metallic materials.”

Specifically, the researchers use Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) along with topology optimization to study the tradeoffs between the weight of the part, support requirements, manufacturing costs, and mechanical performance. They redesign an upright on the SAE Formula student race car to reduce support structures and manufacturing cost while using Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS).

The upright is responsible for transferring loads from the ground to the chassis, and is an important component of the race car. The initial optimized design had a theoretical weight of 1.62 lbs. (735 grams). The model was analyzed for two orientations: flat on the build platform and on its side. A costing tool was used to calculate the overall manufacturing costs of the build. The calculated costs of the part printed flat and on its side were $2015 and $2995, respectively. FEM simulations were carried out to ensure that the mechanical performance of the final parts satisfied the loading conditions.

The researchers then worked to improve the design using a program called OPTISTRUCT, with the original design as a reference.

“Since the optimization problem involves multiple loading cases, a weighted compliance approach is used to determine the optimized layout while considering four different loading cases,” the researchers explain. “The objective function is defined as minimize compliance response subjected to 20% volume fraction as the optimization constraint.”

The aim of the redesign was to reduce the need for supports, and the researchers were able to do so, although the weight of the part was increased. After reviewing the FEM analysis, the part was redesigned once again to reduce the weight. The final part required 91.7% less support structure, and the total manufacturing cost is reduced by 51.7%.

“Future work entails formalizing an approach that integrates topology optimization, FEM, support design, and DfAM rules into a more coherent framework,” the researchers conclude. “We also plan to fabricate and test Redesign 2 using EOS M280 machine and collect actual fabrication data similar to Design 0 to get a more accurate measure of the support requirement and trapped powder. Also, geometry affects the residual stresses and deflections caused by frequent heating and cooling cycles in a laser-based additive manufacturing process. Hence, for functional parts like this, it is important to know the performance of the design during the AM process. Thermo-mechanical simulations will be carried out to estimate the deflections in the part and this data will be used to redesign, if required.”

Authors of the paper include Nithin Reddy, Vincent Maranan, Timothy W. Simpson, Todd Palmer and Corey J. Dickman.

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3D Printing News Briefs: November 28, 2018

We’re starting with some business news in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, and then moving on to an award. A British company is the first automotive consumer retail brand built entirely around 3D printing, which is a pretty big deal. Oerlikon has a new online instant quoting and tracking tool, while MakePrintable has released some new updates and Additive Industries is launching a new center in Singapore. Finally, the SMS Group has won a prestigious award.

First Automotive Consumer Retail Brand Built Around 3D Printing

Leeds-based digital manufacturing company Carbon Performance uses 3D printing, artificial intelligence, and blockchain to design and fabricate lightweight, next-generation automotive components that are environmentally sustainable. Recently, the company designed an suspension upright for a Lotus Elise sports car that was 3D printed in aluminum. The part, with an organic design, ended up being 25% more lightweight and was consolidated from a total of nine parts into just one.

But what really sets Carbon Performance apart is that it packages up its 3D printed automotive components and retails them to end customers, which technically makes the company the first automotive consumer retail brand in the world that’s built entirely around 3D printing. Take a look at its short promo video below:

Oerlikon Offering New Online Tool

Swiss technology and engineering group Oerlikon is now offering a new online tool to help its customers save time with their on-demand manufacturing and rapid prototyping needs. The company is offering an online instant quoting and tracking tool that’s capable of handling a large variety of metal and polymer part needs.

The tool is easy to use – just upload your CAD file and prepare your part for 3D printing by choosing from available options. Then, Oerlikon will 3D print your part, and you can track the order until it’s sent quickly right to your door. The company is even offering a discount for the first order you place in its new service through December 31st, 2018. Simply enter the promo code AMFIRST in the Oerlikon AM online quoting tool to take advantage of the deal.

MakePrintable Releases New Updates

Speaking of tools, the MakePrintable service launched by San Francisco startup Mixed Dimensions back in 2014 has just released a few major updates. It already offers such services as easy, automated 3D file fixing and better user efficiency in 3D printing, and is now rolling out its latest – a pay per download service and a full color 3D printing service. The first lets customers repair files, then pay if they’re pleased with the quality, without having to purchase a subscription, while the latter service is able to produce “unmatched quality prints at competitive pricing compared to others in the industry.”

“When we designed our printing service we focused heavily on all pillars (quality, speed and cost) as we know how much expensive and problematic it is to get quality prints and even to get past most 3D printing services checkout process,” Baha Abunojaim, Co-Founder and CTO of Mixed Dimensions, told 3DPrint.com. “At MakePrintable we guarantee our users a smooth and fast experience with a competitive pricing point while also leveling up the quality thanks to our years of research and robust file preparation technology.”

Additive Industries Announces New Center in Singapore

After an official State Visit from Mdm Halimah Yacob, the President of the Republic of Singapore, to its Eindhoven headquarters, Additive Industries announced that it would be building a Process & Application Development (PAD) Center in Singapore. The company plans to build its newly launched PAD Center up into a regional Asia Pacific hub for customer support and local development. The PAD Center will also serve as a competence center for the industrialization of metal 3D printing within the company itself, with special market focus on important regional verticals like semiconductor equipment and aerospace applications.

“Singapore is an ideal stepping stone for Additive Industries’ growth ambitions in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Daan Kersten, the CEO of Additive Industries. “It is a natural hub with great infrastructure, it’s an excellent fit with our target markets and the governmental support accelerates our execution.”

3D Printed Spray Header by SMS Group Wins Award

A group of companies that’s internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering for the steel and nonferrous metals industry known as the SMS Group just announced that it won the German Design Award 2019, in the Industry category, for its 3D printed spray head for forging plants. This is likely the first time a small machine component like the spray head, which is used to cool dies in forging presses, has won one of these awards, so it’s a pretty big deal. The 3D printed spray head is the result of a joint effort between the group’s Forging Plants Department, Additive Manufacturing Project Team, and simulation technology experts. While it is a small component, it’s certainly mighty – it was designed to fulfill its function in the most efficient way possible. 3D printing helped to make the spray head smaller, less expensive, easily customizable, and made it possible to add flow optimized channels for cooling die heads.

“Winning the Design Award makes us extremely proud. It is recognition of many teams within SMS group whose work is characterized by a highly interdisciplinary approach,” said Axel Roßbach, Research and Development Extrusion and Forging Presses with the SMS group GmbH. “The spray head is a milestone innovation marking a new era in the design of plant and machine components, enabled by the game-changing potential of 3D printing and function-optimized design. The design of a machine part is today no longer limited by the constraints imposed by conventional – process-optimized – forming and machining techniques. Supported by latest software and computer technology, we can now give a component exactly the design that fulfils its designated function in the best possible way. Another important aspect is that we have used new materials. Therefore the Award honors not only a new design, but above all the new way of thinking lived within SMS group, which has materialized in a global approach to Additive Manufacturing.”

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Results of Daimler and BMW AutoAdd Project Show that 3D Printing for Mass Production in Automotive Industry is Possible

[Image: Fraunhofer ILT]

Within the framework of the “Photonic Process Chains” funding initiative by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), several partners – two research institutes and five companies, to be exact – are focusing on 3D printing in the automotive industry. The “Integration of Additive Manufacturing Processes in Automobile Series Production – AutoAdd” research project is coordinated by Daimler AG, and its findings show that by holistically integrating the metallic laser powder bed fusion process (LPBF), also known as SLM and DMLS, developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology (ILT) into automotive series production, unit costs can go way down.

The BMBF has been working on several projects in order to promote the intelligent linking of photon-based manufacturing processes, like metal 3D printing, as a means to produce complex or individualized products. Its aim is to create flexible, conceptual hybrid manufacturing designs, which can then be used for production purposes. But, out of all 14 joint projects in the funding initiative, which began in 2015 and ended in May, AutoAdd should make it easier to use 3D printing in the automotive industry within just three years.

In addition to Fraunhofer ILT and Daimler, the AutoAdd project partners include:

BMW
GKN Sinter Metals Engineering GmbH
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Netfabb GmbH
TRUMPF Laser- und Systemtechnik GmbH

[Image: TRUMPF]

These partners are working to lower unit costs by integrating the LPBF process chain into the automotive mass production environment, in order to develop a new hybrid process chain. Daimler and the BMW Group worked together to define the necessary requirements for the new additive process chain, and then Fraunhofer ILT and TRUMPF used the chain to create a variety of plant and finishing conceptual designs for 3D printing.

In addition to a modular system architecture that allows for the use of an “interchangeable cylinder principle” and multiple beam sources, potentially production-ready optical designs were created. The AutoAdd partners also analyzed GKN’s novel scalable materials, as well as created some promising post-processing concepts that could be automated, such as support structure removal.

KIT was the partner which ended up evaluating these new factory designs.

According to a Fraunhofer ILT press release, “Using a simulation model, the engineers of the wbk Institute for Production Science visualized an exemplary, conventional process chain, in which they were able to design various possible LPBF plant concepts. With methods such as cost or benchmark analyzes, they were able to compare the new approaches from a technical and economic point of view with previous ones.”

Long-term recording of the contour exposure during 3D printing of a grinding wheel. [Image: MTU Aero Engines AG]

There were several positive effects stemming from the €3.37 million project, at least in terms of academics. There was enough useful content from AutoAdd to fuel four separate dissertations, and this knowledge can also be used for lectures in the future. Next year, a new project, partially based on the AutoAdd results, will launch that’s focused on line-integration of 3D printing to “implement the designed additive process chain.”

The joint project results are interesting and impressive, showing that it is indeed possible to achieve additive mass manufacturing. For instance, the whole process chain can be automated, making it more efficient and cost-effective, as the team discovered that modular cylinders and wet-chemical immersion baths are effective ways to remove, batchwise, components during post-processing. In addition, common metrics for evaluating LPBF manufacturing equipment were developed by the AutoAdd project partners, which can be used to identify popular equipment manufacturers for a large-scale benchmarking exercise.

“By using standardized benchmark jobs with different test specimens, industrial users can now calculate transferable key figures with which they will be able to find the most economical system for their purposes,” the press release noted.

One of the most, if not the most, important points the AutoAdd team needed in order to make 3D printing ready for series production was the ability to reproduce mechanical properties. The partners took an important fundamental step by demonstrating and evaluating this feature in multiple facilities – showing that it is possible to integrate an economic additive process chain in automotive mass production.

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BMW Surpasses One Million 3D Printed Automotive Components

BMW Group has been using 3D printing for more than 25 years, and in the last decade has produced a million parts using the technology. This year alone, the company expects that it will 3D print more than 200,000 components, a 42 percent increase over last year. And BMW Group is just getting started. The company is aggressively pursuing additive manufacturing, intent on staying ahead in an automotive industry that is rapidly embracing the technology.

“The use of components made by additive manufacturing in series production of vehicles is increasing particularly strongly at the moment,” said Dr. Jens Ertel, Director of the BMW Group Additive Manufacturing Center. “We are following the development and application of advanced these manufacturing methods very closely indeed, partly through longstanding cooperations with leading manufacturers in the field. At the same time, we are engaging in targeted technology scouting and evaluating innovative production systems.”

BMW Group’s millionth 3D printed component came recently in the form of a 3D printed window guide rail for the BMW i8 Roadster. It took only five days to develop and was quickly integrated into series production. The guide rail, which is located in the door of the Roadster, allows the window to operate smoothly. It was manufactured using HP’s Multi Jet Fusion technology, which is now being used in the series production of automobiles for the first time. The technology is capable of producing up to 100 window guide rails in 24 hours. Additionally, BMW uses EOS Selective Laser Sintering and various other technologies for metal and polymers.

The window guide rail isn’t the only 3D printed component in the BMW i8 Roadster – it wasn’t even the first, actually. The first was the fixture for the soft top attachment, which was 3D printed from aluminum alloy. It is both lighter and stiffer than the traditional injection molded plastic component used in its place. This year, the component won an Altair Enlighten Award in the Modules category.

BMW Group began using both plastic and metal back in 2010 for the production of a smaller series of components such as the water pump pulley for DTM vehicles. In 2012, the company began using laser sintering for several components for the Rolls-Royce Phantom. While many automotive companies are using 3D printing in their manufacturing processes, a lot of them are mainly using the technology for tooling purposes. BMW Group has been one of the pioneers in using 3D printing for actual functional car parts.

The company has big plans for 3D printing in the future. Recently it began offering several customization options for the BMW MINI, many of them 3D printed. Last year BMW Group began using 3D printing for the fiber optic guides in the Rolls-Royce Dawn; Rolls-Royce currently has 10 3D printed components in its product line.

It was just earlier this year that BMW Group built a new dedicated Additive Manufacturing Campus, which likely at least partially accounts for the drastic increase in 3D printed parts over the last year. The two 3D printed components in the BMW i8 Roadster were designed and produced at the Additive Manufacturing Center, among many others. BMW Group has long been a leader in 3D printing in the automotive industry, and it clearly intends to hold on to that designation.

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[Source: Automobile Magazine]

Ford and trinckle Partnering to Automate Design of 3D Printed Production Tools

3D printed lift assist

Popular automotive manufacturer Ford, which has long used 3D printing to fabricate assembly tools and was recently recognized for its work with the technology, is now partnering up with award-winning software company trinckle in order to automate the design process for its 3D printed production tools. The two companies will present the joint project next week during formnext.

“The additive manufacturing itself is no longer the dominating cost factor limiting the scalability of the application. Up to 50% of the total costs per tool are caused by the manual design, which is the new bottleneck. For each new line and each special edition, these tools must be specifically designed to position the badges with exact accuracy,” explained Lars Bognar, an engineer with Ford Research & Advanced Engineering Europe. “This design task is not a trivial one, as the tools have to adapt precisely to the free-form surfaces of the car body sheet. It can easily last between two and four hours to create an appropriate AM-ready design. Time that is hard to spend for the designers, who are already working at full capacity. In the worst case, a short-term demand can result in a delay of assembly because the corresponding tools are not available. It was time for us to rethink the design process from scratch, and that’s when we came across the trinckle team.”

Based in Berlin, trinckle, a 3D printing service and software company, specializes in product configuration and automated design. The company uses its cloud software paramate to create software applications, which can integrate the user into the process, for the automated design of 3D printed products across a wide range of industries, including automotive.

Many automotive manufacturers use 3D printing to fabricate assembly aids and hand tools, like fixtures and jigs. There are many advantages, including lower weight and production costs and faster availability. Ford, which currently has over 50 different 3D printed tools in serial production, is working with trinckle to further scale the applications of the technology.

Bognar and his fellow engineer Raphael Koch didn’t want to settle for just saving a little money, and decided to, as trinckle put it, look “at the AM application as a whole.” They decided to use a hand tool called a labeling jig, which places model badges on the body of a vehicle, as an example.

trinckle developed an internal application for Ford so it could efficiently generate these tools by creating new jig designs in just minutes. Employees can upload the car body’s model data, and the necessary badges, through an intuitive user interface. Then, with just a click of the mouse, standard elements like edge guides, handles, magnet mounts for fixation, and text fields can be easily added. Software algorithms generate the tool’s geometry so it fits the contour of the car body.

“The trinckle software application does not only dramatically reduce manual design times and costs, but also streamlines the entire process,” said Koch. “We enable our employees on the shop floor to take over more responsibility and relieve our designers at the same time. The latter can focus on their core activities again.”

Now, instead of lasting two to four hours, the design process only takes 10 minutes, thanks to the straightforward handling provided by paramate. Because AM-compliant design expertise is not necessary, assembly line employees can easily design 3D printable tools on their own and independently carry out tool optimization iterations.

Using automation to design 3D printable labeling jigs is only the first step in the right direction for Bognar and Koch, and in the near future, other additive tools will likely undergo similar automation.

To learn more about this work with Ford, and its other business applications, visit trinckle at booth C07 in Hall 3.0 at formnext in Frankfurt next week. Bognar and Dr. Ole Bröker, the Head of Business Development at trinckle, will also be presenting the joint project at the TCT Conference during the show.

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Betatype Case Study Illustrates Cost and Time Savings of Using 3D Printing to Fabricate Automotive Components

When it comes to industrial 3D printing for automotive applications, London-based Betatype is building up considerable expertise. The 3D printing company was founded in 2012, and works with its customers to deliver functional, 3D printed components. Betatype built a data processing platform called Engine to help manage and control multi-scale design; the platform maximizes the ability of 3D printing to provide control in one process over material, shape, and structure.

Some of the benefits provided by 3D printing include high cost-per-part, productivity, and volume, especially when it comes to using metals. Betatype recently completed a case study that demonstrates how the advantages of metal 3D printing can be properly leveraged for applications in automotive parts production. It focuses on Betatype’s use of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF, also called Powder Bed Fusion, DMLS and SLM) 3D printing and optimization technology to, as the case study puts it, challenge “the current status quo” by producing 384 qualified metal parts in one build, which helped lower both lead time and cost per part.

“When it comes to automotive and other consumer-facing industries focused on producing high volumes of parts at low costs, the current generation of Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes is generally considered incapable of meeting these needs,” Betatype explained in its study.

“The key to making AM productive enough for wider adoption across these high-volume industries, however, lies in process economics – choosing the most effective manufacturing process for each part. Combining these principles with Betatype’s knowledge of the limits of additive – as well as how and when to push them – together with the company’s powerful optimisation technology, supports customers with the design and production of parts that not only perform better, but that are economically viable against existing mass production technologies.”

Production build of automotive LED heatsinks by Progressive Technology on an EOS M280.

You’ll often hear people in the 3D printing industry saying that one of the benefits of the technology is its ability to offer greater design freedom than what you’d find in more conventional manufacturing process. While this is true – 3D printing can be used to produce some pretty complex geometry – that doesn’t mean it’s without its own problems. It’s necessary to understand these constraints in order to find applications that can fit with the technology, and be used in high volume manufacturing as well.

Processes like die casting are capable of creating millions of components a year. 3D printing is valuable due to its capability of using the least amount of material to provide geometrically complex parts. Often 3D printing just doesn’t have the manufacturing volume or part cost to be an economical choice. But, this may not be the case for long.

According to the case study they looked at, “how it is possible to combine the innate geometric capabilities of AM with increased production volumes of cost-effective parts and improved performance” The team looked at “the Automotive industry’s switch to the use of LED headlights, which brings with it new challenges in thermal management.”

Most LED headlights need larger heatsinks, which are typically actively cooled. Betatype realized that the geometry of these metal parts would make them a good candidate for metal 3D printing, which is able to combine several manufacturing processes into just one production technique.

Betatype realized that LPBF would be ideal during the component’s initial design stage, and so was able to design the component with in-built support features. This made it possible to stack multiple headlight parts without requiring any additional supports; in addition, the company maintains that completed parts could be snapped apart by hand without any other post-processing required. This claim is something that we are highly skeptical about. No destressing or tumbling, shot peening, HIP or other processes usually result in parts that look different from the ones in the images given to us.

[Image: EOS]

Depending on part geometry it can be difficult to achieve full stacking with LPBF 3D printing. This is largely due to thermal stresses placed on parts and supports. Betatype designed the part in such a way as to decrease these stresses. This is what allowed Betatype to nest a series of heatsinks in order to maximize build volume and produce nearly 400 parts in one build envelope using an EOS M 280 3D printer owned by Progressive Technology.

“Through specific control parameters, the exposure of the part in each layer to a single toolpath where the laser effectively melted the part was reduced significantly, with minimal delays in between.”

13 x the productivity per system. Estimated Number of Parts per Machine per Year/Model built on build times provided by Progressive Technology for SLMF system (EOS M 280) and Renishaw AMPD for MLMF system (RenAM 500Q).

One of the large drivers in part cost is equipment amortization, and it’s important to lower build time in order to make parts more cost-effective. By using LPBF 3D printing and its own process IP and optimization algorithms, Betatype claims to have reduced cost-per-part from over $40 to less than $4, and lower the build time from one hour to less than five minutes per part – ten times faster than what a standard build processor is capable of performing. This would be a huge leap in capability for metal printing if these cost estimates stack up.

On single laser systems, like the EOS M 280 and Renishaw’s RenAM 500M, Betatype says that lowered the build time for all 384 parts from 444 hours to less than 30 hours; this number went down even further, to less than 19 hours, by using new multi-laser systems like the SLM Solutions 500 and the RenAM 500Q.

Up to 90% reduction in part cost. Estimated Cost per Part / Model built on build times provided by Progressive Technology for SLMF system (EOS M 280) and Renishaw AMPD for MLMF system (RenAM 500Q).

Betatype’s claims that their customer was able to achieve a productivity gain of 19 times the old figure per system in a year – going from 7,055 parts to a total of 135,168.

The case study concludes, “With an installation of 7 machines running this optimised process, volumes can approach 1 million parts per year — parts that are more functional and more cost-effective.”

It always good to show performance that is a step change ahead of what everyone thought possible. It is also significant that companies are making detailed case studies and verifiable claims as to output and yield. Betatype’s Case Study shows very promising numbers and we hope that productivity can indeed reach these heights with their technology.

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[Images provided by Betatype unless otherwise noted]

Jay Leno’s Contribution to Auto Part 3D Printing

It is well known that Jay Leno is an avid car enthusiast and has a world-renowned collection of nearly 300 vehicles. What isn’t as well known is that his team does their own car repair and utilizes 3D printing for replacement parts. It can be difficult and costly finding parts for vintage cars that ended final production many years ago. Most car collectors don’t have enough vehicles to justify experimenting with 3D part design and production. Specialty replacement parts providers are few and far between. Waiting for a few parts can tie up a garage repair bay for a long time. Jay Leno is showing the auto industry how to address these issues with 3D printing. Companies and individuals engaged in the classic car business are eligible for R&D tax credits.

The Research & Development Tax Credit

Enacted in 1981, the now permanent Federal Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit allows a credit that typically ranges from 4%-7% of eligible spending for new and improved products and processes. Qualified research must meet the following four criteria:

Must be technological in nature
Must be a component of the taxpayer’s business
Must represent R&D in the experimental sense and generally includes all such costs related to the development or improvement of a product or process
Must eliminate uncertainty through a process of experimentation that considers one or more alternatives

Eligible costs include US employee wages, cost of supplies consumed in the R&D process, cost of pre-production testing, US contract research expenses, and certain costs associated with developing a patent.

On December 18, 2015, President Obama signed the PATH Act, making the R&D Tax Credit permanent. Beginning in 2016, the R&D credit can be used to offset Alternative Minimum Tax, for companies with revenue below $50MM and for the first time, pre-profitable and pre-revenue startup businesses can obtain up to $250,000 per year in payroll taxes and cash rebates.

The large auto manufacturers and their suppliers have experimented with 3D part design but to date have not yet evolved to volume production. Leno serves as an additional auto parts design incubator and an example the auto industry can learn from.

Other Classic Car Part Designer Examples

Porsche

Porsche is among the leaders in manufacturing specialized high-performance sports vehicles, and has been doing so for nearly 90 years. Porsche is integrating 3D printing to keep their older model vehicles running and eliminate expensive tooling and storage costs for numerous classic Porsche models. Cars such as the 1986 Porsche 959 where only 292 were built require special parts that do not exist anymore and would take a series of complex tooling to acquire a necessary part. With Porsche’s digital fabrication processes, they can simply scan and print a single part instead of producing numerous small run expensive components that require entire tooling mechanisms. Porsche is currently utilizing 3D printing to print eight other components from plastic or steel and is testing whether 3D printing can be used to reproduce many more components.

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz is a global automobile marquee known for their luxury vehicles and trucks that has been a consistent adopter of the latest technology to improve upon their past, present and future product lines. Mercedes-Benz can essentially print any part for any car they’ve ever built just as long as they have the schematics or part in hand to duplicate it. Customers are closer now to having access to a large catalog of replacement or custom parts that Mercedes can print and ship in a short amount of time. The utilization of 3D printing removes the overhead of machining expensive parts and tools while setting up a market to sell what were once very expensive parts, for a fraction of the cost.

Freshmade 3D

Freshmade 3D in Ohio is a team of highly skilled individuals with extensive experience in additive manufacturing, materials and processes, industrial design and reverse engineering. They strive to provide precious antique and valuable classic car parts that become increasingly difficult to find every day through the use of 3D printing methods, and are poised to lead the industry in serving restoration and custom automotive markets. With few alternatives for finding a classic car replacement part, Freshmade 3D gives enthusiasts a valuable option to use additive manufacturing to engineer quality parts or prototypes that would be much more expensive if the parts were to be machined. Freshmade 3D offers a wide range of materials and small-medium scale manufacturing that will satisfy most car part needs.

PartWorks

PartWorks is a 3D printing and CNC machining company out of Georgia that uses the latest technology to deliver the best manufactured parts for many of the leading industries. PartWorks has become especially adept in the vintage car sector where they are capable of engineering obsolete and custom parts that cannot be found in production today. PartWorks is unique because they utilize precision laser scanners, 3D printers, CNC machining and injection molds/stamps that allow their customers the options of having the part made in house or offering an open format file of a 3D model that can be printed or edited by the customer themselves.

GRYP

GRYP is a French startup that is using 3D printing to create classic car parts on-demand in an attempt to reduce restoration costs. Their goal is to allow collectors to restore their vintage cars at a consistent and affordable cost to continue the prestigious heritage of such vehicles. GRYP works with numerous automobile clubs and associations, spare parts distributors, and local 3D printing companies in an attempt to integrate large scale 3D printing not only to the classic car sector but to the automotive industry as a whole.

Conclusion

The world had enjoyed Jay Leno’s humor for many years. Now he’s bringing his expertise and creativity to provide design leadership for the automotive industry while having his own fun. Even though Leno retired from late night public television, he still continues his on-camera appearances with his own YouTube channel called Jay Leno’s Garage, dedicated to 3D printing and cars, and has garnered more than 2 million subscribers as he spreads the benefits of utilizing 3D printing.

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Charles Goulding & Ryan Donley of R&D Tax Savers discuss automotive 3D printing.