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Markforged Metal X Now Lets You 3D Print in Inconel 625

Metal and composite 3D printer manufacturer Markforged has now released Inconel 625 for the Metal X system, bringing a high-performance nickel superalloy to many more users.

Inconel 625 is used in many high-performance applications where corrosion resistance and temperature resistance are sought qualities. 625 is used in turbines, piping, valves, specialized industrial equipment, hydraulics and in flow applications. It is used in the nuclear and defense industry as well as aerospace, oil, power, chemical, and the marine industry. 625 has already been available on the Exone systems for a few years and recently was made available for Digital Metal. Sandvik, Hoganas, and AP&C already offered 625 for the Powder Bed Fusion market. SLM Solutions, Admatec, 3D Systems, GE and EOS machines let you print in the material. You could order 3D printed 625 parts from Stratasys Direct and others as well.

The systems and setups you would need to successfully print Inconel 625 would be quite extensive and expensive, however. Conventionally manufacturing 625 was often also complex. What Markforged is now doing is making this material an option for many more applications and users. The Markforged Metal X is available for around $100,000. This is a fraction (15% to 5%) of what you’d need to spend with other manufacturers to be able to 3D print 625. Along with a washing, debinding and sintering step the Metal X lets you in a relatively affordable way print parts. Binder jetting metals is still difficult with new geometries and different wall thicknesses and sizes leading to different shrinkages. So ten thousand of the same or similar parts should not be a problem but 10,000 completely unique parts would be. Traditionally as well we think of Powder Bed Fusion as providing us with higher performance more accurate parts than binder jet.

The Metal X set up (is it ten or X, I’ve never asked)

But Markforged is opening a niche here in manufacturing which is a very exciting one. Yes, there is a burgeoning market for Powder Bed Fusion for qualified parts for nuclear, marine and aviation. This market alone in the relatively exotic 625 material is potentially huge. An even broader market exists around this market in processing, marine, automotive, flow, power, defense and oil and gas. This market is huge. Localized production of defense products in-country at the base or at the oilfield alone is a vast market. In light of recent events in Saudi Arabia, 5% of global crude production has been halted for a number of weeks or perhaps months. The Abqaiq attack exposed Aramco to loses of $200 million per day. In that kind of money no object, scenario local production of replacement parts, valves, pipes, and fittings would be a welcome addition for Aramco and many other NOCs. We think that we’re always so cool in 3D printing but our effects and uses represent a considerable impact on small elements of industries to which ours is a rounding error. If the loses from Abqaiq last as much as two months, one firm Aramco, will have forgone in revenue from one damaged site what our entire industry generates in revenue per year.

The US navy seems intent on putting 3D printers on aircraft carriers and other ships. For some reason, they have a penchant for Powder Bed Fusion. I think putting a laser and powder system which needs argon to run onboard an aircraft carrier is lunacy. But, a Metal X system may be much easier for the Navy to operate safely. Surely it will tend to explode less? At the same time, one would expect fewer problems with the whole you know, moving boat thing. Given what is at stake in the Navy with delays, the potential of underway replenishment is also considerable. Onboard 3D printing also makes a lot of sense for some commercial shipping and offshore.

I’m on the whole very skeptical of binder jet but very bullish on the prospects of 3D printing for marine and oil and gas applications. There is incredible unexploited potential there. On time, small series, weight-saving or flow-optimized parts produced in place is exactly the sweet spot of 3D printing. I really believe that Markforged has real potential here to open three multi-billion-dollar markets for 3D printing: in defense local spares, marine and oil, and gas. Apart from Ivaldi, some work by Voestalpine, SLM and Aidro, no one is paying attention to oil and gas or marine. In April we looked at shipboard 3D printing but while this area is expanding it lags significantly behind aviation and even automotive in the adoption of 3D printing.

Jon Reilly, VP of Product at Markforged says that,

“Inconel is traditionally a difficult and expensive material to work with. Before Markforged, many would have to wait for a contract supplier, invest significantly in mold creation, or purchase a powder-based process that requires intensive facility build-outs and highly trained technicians, Now manufacturing Inconel is fast, safe, and affordable.”

The launch customer is also Nieka Systems which makes “sample preparation equipment for the mining and cement production industries” and has “3D printed Inconel crucible clips to hold samples in place while rapidly and repeatedly cycling between high and low temperatures. The team can now print the same batch of parts in-house 10x cheaper and in just a few days instead of waiting four weeks for the 3D printed parts to be delivered from a third-party supplier.”

You can read more on the case study here.

There is a lot to be stated for this kind of in time local production by regular industry as well. Whereas I’m super skeptical about metal binder jet being used for many different unique parts, using it for standardized parts, replacement parts and consumables to me has a really exciting future. I’d love for ruggedized Metal X systems to be offered certified for use onboard vessels and able to produce certified and qualified parts for oil and gas as well as marine applications. For now, being able to cost-effectively print 625 moves us all a bit closer to where we want to be.

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Markforged brings Inconel superalloy to the Metal X 3D printer

Award winning composite and metal 3D printer provider Markforged has made Inconel 625 a compatible material for the Metal X. A nickel-based superalloy, Inconel 625 is remarkable for its propensity to retain high strength at elevated temperatures, and is often applied in chemical, offshore, and aerospace industries. With availability for the Metal X, Markforged seeks to reduce […]

The Virtual Foundry quietly prints its way across the periodic table using common 3D printers

Building on its patent issued on August 13, 2019, The Virtual Foundry continues to expand its 3D printable materials offerings with an impressive trip across the periodic table of the elements. The Virtual Foundry currently stocks about 20 materials, including Titanium 64-5, Stainless Steel 316l and 17-4, Aluminum 6061, Iron (high magnetic permeability), Copper, Bronze […]

3D Printing News Briefs: January 26, 2019

We’re starting with business first in this edition of 3D Printing News Briefs, and then moving on to design software and 3D printing materials. Mimaki USA is getting ready for the grand opening of its LA Technology Center next month, and a Sartomer executive has been elected to the RadTech board of directors. A startup will soon be offering a new cryptotoken for additive manufacturing, and the 3D Printing Association will cease operations. A simplified Blender user interface will make 3D printing easier, and Protolabs is introducing some new materials for its DMLS 3D printing.

Mimaki USA Opening Los Angeles Technology Center

Not long after Japanese company Mimaki Engineering launched its first full-color inkjet printer in 1996, it established Mimaki USA, an operating entity that manufactures digital printing and cutting products around the world. Mimaki USA began preparing to enter the 3D printing market in 2015, and installed its first 3DUJ-553 3D printer in the Americas last winter. Now, it’s preparing for the grand opening of its Los Angeles Technology Center next month.

The event will take place on Friday, February 22nd from 10 am to 4 pm at the new technology center, located at 150 West Walnut Street, Suite 100, in Gardena, California. Attendees will have the chance to meet the company’s industry experts, along with Mimaki Engineering Chairman Akira Ikeda, Mimaki USA President Naoya Kawagoshi, and the regional sales managers from all seven technology centers. Live demonstrations of the company’s printers and cutters will commence after lunch, and attendees will also enjoy tours of the center and a traditional Japanese Kagami Biraki ceremony.

Sartomer’s Jeffrey Klang Elected to RadTech Board

Sartomer, an Arkema Inc. business unit and developer of UV/EB curing technology products, has announced that Jeffrey Klang, its global R&D Directer – 3D Printing for Sartomer, has been elected to the board of directors for RadTech, a nonprofit trade association that promotes the use and development of UV and EB processing technologies. Sartomer is part of Arkema’s commercial platform dedicated to additive manufacturing, and Klang, an inventor with over 20 US patents who was previously the manager for Sartomer’s Coatings Platform R&D, has played an important role in helping the company develop and commercialize many of its oligomers and monomers.

“Jeff’s strong leadership of Sartomer’s innovation and R&D initiatives supports the evolving needs of UV and EB processors in diverse industries, such as 3D printing, coatings, graphic arts, adhesives, sealants, elastomers and electronics. His deep understanding of UV/EB technologies, markets and regulatory requirements will make him an asset to RadTech’s board of directors,” said Kenny Messer, the President of Sartomer Americas.

erecoin Startup to Offer New Cryptocurrency for Additive Manufacturing

A startup called erecoin, which is a product of CAE lab GmbH, is on a mission to change the world of 3D printing by combining the benefits of blockchain with future demands of the ever expanding AM community. After a year of preparation, erecoin has completed the registration of its ICO (Initial Coin Offering), and people can begin purchasing its new cryptotoken on the Ethereum public trading infrastructure starting February 18, 2019.

“We are glad and proud that we, as a young startup, managed to master the necessary steps for a functioning utility token,” said erecoin Co-Founder Konstantin Steinmüller. “At the same time we are curious to see how the community supports our crowdfunding.”

Steinmüller told fellow co-founder Jürgen Kleinfelder about a concrete 3D prototype optimization project that CAE-lab was working on, which is how the idea to combine blockchain and 3D printing came about. The startup’s goal is to get rid of many of the uncertainties in the AM process chain, and blockchain can be used to conclude smart contracts to solve legal and technical questions in the industry. Because data exchange is integrated into the blockchain, a secure and efficient relationship of trust is created between the parties in the chain. Time will only tell if erecoin can achieve its goal and help accelerate additive manufacturing or if it is just hopeful hype or an inefficient way to do something no one needs.

3D Printing Association Closes

The 3D Printing Association (3DPA) is the member-funded, global trade association for the 3D printing industry in Europe. In 2015, the 3DPA moved its base of operations to The Hague in order to develop an independent professional B2B platform for European AM industries. As the 3D printing landscape continues to grow and mature, the association has decided to permanently terminate its operations beginning February 1st, 2019. But this isn’t necessarily bad news – in fact, 3DPA is glad that CECIMO, the European Association of the Machine Tool Industries and related Manufacturing Technologies, has been able to set itself up as a leading 3D printing advocate in Europe.

“3DPA’s goal, derived from an online survey and a business summit at the beginning of 2015, was to provide an independent B2B platform for standardisation, education and industry advocacy. Although there are still important steps to be taken to reaching full maturity, meanwhile the landscape has become less fragmented and volatile, and additive manufacturing has been embraced as strategic pillar by well-established umbrella organisations in sectors like manufacturing, automotive, aerospace and medical appliances,” said 3DPA’s Managing Director Jules Lejeune.

“CECIMO for example, is the long standing European Association of the Machine Tool Industries and related Manufacturing Technologies. It represents some 350 leading AM companies that play a significant role in a wide variety of critical sections of the AM value chain – from the supply of all different types of raw materials for additive manufacturing and the development of software, to machine manufacturing and post-processing. In recent years, it has successfully claimed a leading role in bringing relevant topics to the regulatory agenda in Brussels.”

Simplified Blender User Interface

While the free 3D design and modeling software application Blender is very handy, it’s only helpful if you’re able to learn how to use it, and by some accounts, that is not an easy feat. But, now there’s a new version of Blender that includes a simplified user interface (UI) that’s so easy, even kids as young as 10 years old can figure out how to work it. FluidDesigner has used a new Blender 2.79 feature called Application Templates, which makes it possible to add a library of parametric smart objects and reduce the menu structure and interface.

“Application Templates allows for the simplification of the UI but with the whole power of Blender in the background. You can access nearly all of Blender commands from the Spacebar or by switching panels. Another way to look at it is that it is an Application Template is an almighty Add-On,” Paul Summers from FluidDesigner said in an email.

“All objects are either Nurbs or Bezier (2D) Curves for ease of editing. Nurbs objects in particular can be joined together to create personalised jewellery or artwork quickly and simply.

“There is no need to go to the trouble of joining objects using Boolean modifiers, instead you simply overlap Nurbs objects and then run the *.obj file through Netfabb Basic to repair any issues created with Blender objects. With its much simplified interface, created by Andrew Peel, FluidDesigner for 3D Printing with its parametric smart objects (Nurbs curves) is suitable for even the novice user. The current version runs under Blender 2.79 and can be accessed from the File menu.”

Protolabs Adds New DMLS Materials

Protolabs, a digital manufacturing source for custom prototypes and low-volume production parts, has announced that it is enhancing its direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) offering with two new materials. Nickel-based Inconel 718 is a heat- and corrosion-resistant alloy with high creep, fatigue, rupture, and tensile strength, is able to create a thick, stable, passivating oxide layer at high temperatures, which protects it from attack – making it an ideal material for aerospace and other heavy industries for manufacturing gas turbine parts, jet engines, and rocket engine components.

Maraging Steel 1.2709 is a pre-alloyed, ultra-high strength steel in the form of fine powder. It’s easy to heat treat with a simple thermal age-hardening process, and offers high hardness and high-temperature resistance, which makes it perfect for high performance industrial and engineering parts and tooling applications. These two new Protolabs materials additions help reinforce the company’s enduring reputation as one that can offer an impressive range of metals.

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Study Shows Anisotropic Properties of 3D Printed Nickel Super Alloy K418 (713C)

3D printing materials don’t just suddenly appear and get put to use without further thought – there is a great deal of study that goes into them, particularly metal materials. Their behaviors and properties must be known in order to make sure they perform. Especially now that our technology is being used in high-value applications such as aero-engines and medcine research about material properties and performance is growing in both volume and importance. In a new study entitled “Anisotropy of nickel-based superalloy K418 fabricated by selective laser melting,” a group of researchers used 3D printed samples to study the anisotropic mechanical behavior of one particular material – K418, a nickel-based superalloy.

K418 was developed in the 1960s and has been used on a widespread basis in aerospace engines, hot end turbocharger impellers, turbine blades the automotive industry, and more. It has excellent mechanical properties, excellent ductility and fatigue strength, good oxidation resistance at high temperatures, making it a stable and reliable material. It is difficult to machine by conventional methods at room temperature, however, due to excessive tool wearing, high cutting temperature, and other issues. Components made from K418 are often complex, with inner chambers, thin walls, and overhangs, making them difficult to fabricate through one single method such as machining. This alloy is also known as 713C Alloy, 713C,or Inconel 713C Alloy and many derivatives thereof. Inconel is actually a superalloy that was developed in the 60″s but became a catch-all name for the many superalloys developed around the same time frame. Inconel 713LC was a proprietary alloy made by the INCO (INCO was a global Canadian mining company that was the world’s largest producer of nickel, bought by Vale in 2006) and this term plus all of the derivatives are used interchangeably. 713C or as it is also known K418 has been used extensively in rocket engines, turbo stages and in the space and defense industries since the 60’s. SpaceX, NASA, Rocketdyne and others are all using this material to 3D print rocket engines.

Selective laser melting (SLM, also called powder bed fusion, DMLS, Direct Metal Laser Sintering, PBF) has shown itself to be more effective than conventional techniques like machining at manufacturing complex metal components. Thanks to its high temperature and rapid cooling, it also offers better mechanical properties than casting.

In this study, the researchers looked at the anisotropic properties of the K418 alloy. Anisotropy is defined as a difference in physical or mechanical properties when measured along different axes – in other words, a material’s properties could be different along the vertical axis than along the horizontal axis. In FDM (material extrusion) printed parts for example parts are weaker in between layers than laterally.

The researchers used a self-developed SLM 3D printer to produce several cylinders from the K418 material. The samples were manufactured both horizontally and vertically, or transverse and longitudinal. Microstructural anisotropy analysis was performed on both the horizontal and vertical samples.

“The microstructural anisotropy analysis was performed by optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM),” the researchers explain. “Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analysis was used to identify their crystallographic preferred orientation (texture) and to correlate the anisotropy of the mechanical strength with the texture of the material. The results showed that the transverse specimens had slightly higher yield strength, but much significantly higher ductility than that of the transverse specimens with the elongated columnar grains along the building direction.”

SEM micrographs of (a and b) the horizontal samples and (b and c) the vertical samples.

The extremely high thermal gradient and rapid cooling rate during the SLM process led to strong non-equilibrium solidification of the molten pool and the formation of ultrafine grain structure, which resulted in anisotropic microstructures and mechanical properties in different directions.

“The presence of textures renders the SLM processed K418 samples anisotropic in their mechanical properties, indicating that the transverse specimens display a ductile-brittle hybrid fracture mode with a slightly higher yield strength, while the vertical specimens show a ductile fracture mode with a significant increase in ductility,” the researchers continue.

The fact that SLM-produced K418 has anisotropic properties is an interesting finding. The finding may mean that engineers will feel more comfortable using and designing K418 parts using 3D printing. Metal 3D printing is an extremely effective method for producing components from this material, particularly complex structures. Given the performance envelope of this material and its space applications, this is sure to be an article that many will take an interest in. For some more reading on Inconel this article discusses cooling rates and their effects on Inconel 718 and in this article, we look at how Inconel 718 is being used by Launcher.

Authors of the paper include Zhen Chen, Shenggui Chen, Zhengying Wei, Lijuan Zhang, Pei Wei, Bingheng Lu, Shuzhe Zhang, and Yu Xiang.

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