Industrial Additive Manufacturing
Industrial additive manufacturing applications are primarily linked to prototyping in the automotive field and early adoption for production in the aerospace segment, which is by far the biggest user of polymer and especially metal 3D printing technologies.
As the machines production throughput has increased in recent years, industrial adoption of AM is now beginning to extend to short and medium batch production for the automotive segment as well. Furthermore, as new metal and polymer technologies now enable the production of larger parts at reduced costs, the use of AM has begun to contaminate the energy segment (with applications in both traditional and sustainable energy production and transport) and the marine segment.
While the cost and time reduction benefits of AM technologies for weight and (topology) optimization, subassemblies and generative part design have been well documented, several hurdles still exist that are limiting a widespread adoption of these key technologies in full end-to-end digital and automated production cycles. Several of these hurdles are inherent to the AM technologies and related material availability, however, the biggest challenges remain linked to process standardization, part finishing and repeatability.
Today every major aerospace or automotive manufacturers has made some significant stride toward adoption of AM both for internal R&D and production and by leveraging external 3D printing service bureaus as a key resource for outsourced supplies. Every AM related industrial project is growing and the trend is clearly accelerating.
Latest industrial AM news:
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GE Additive is today inaugurating a new 40,000-square-meter campus in Lichtenfels, Germany, which will become the new official home for GE Additive Concept Laser. The new Bavarian facility, called GE Additive Lichtenfels, will help the additive manufacturing specialist to meet growing customer demands and transition into additive serial production. The…
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The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory (CCDC-ARL) has awarded $25 million to the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) to continue developing and advancing a cold spray 3D printing technique which could have applications repairing vehicles and military equipment in the field. With a strong background and experience…
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Volvo Trucks North America announced this week that it has adopted 3D printing for the production of tools and fixtures. The 3D printed components are being used at its New River Valley (NRV) facility in Dublin, Virginia, where all trucks for the North American market are manufactured. Since implementing additive…
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Marines from Marine Corps Systems Command and 7th Engineer Support Battalion, along with engineers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, conducted the first known 3D concrete printing operation with a three-inch print nozzle at the CERL headquarters in early August in Champaign, Illinois. The CERL,…
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Norway-based classification society DNV GL has issued a certificate to engineering company thyssenkrupp, making its TechCenter Additive Manufacturing the world’s first producer of 3D printed parts for maritime applications to receive manufacturer approval from DNV GL. As an approved supplier for maritime and general industrial 3D printed components, thyssenkrupp aims to…
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3D printing company Markforged has today unveiled Print Farms, which provide an economic way for its customers to exploit and scale their metal and carbon fiber additive manufacturing capacities. The Print Farm packages essentially enable customers to purchase Markforged’s Metal X and X7 systems at combo prices and to control…
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3D Systems recently revealed that Stockholm-based product design firm Splitvision Design was one of the first companies in the Nordic region to adopt its Figure 4 Standalone 3D printer. Since installing the scalable additive manufacturing solution, the Swedish agency has seen drastic improvements in its product development and prototyping processes—especially…
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ServoFly T4/1, a 3D printed flight control device produced by Italian AM parts production service Aidro, enabled Mattia Negusanti to obtain his pilot license at the Fano airport, in Central Italy. This is the first case in Italy, and perhaps in the world, in which a person who’d lost an arm…
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For quantum technologies to fulfill their promise, the systems that support them need to shrink. Laurence Coles from Added Scientific, an AM consultancy service which spun off from the University of Nottingham, wrote an article for Physics World (full article here) on how advances in additive manufacturing are bringing miniaturization within…
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Musashi Seimitsu Industry, a Japanese automotive manufacturing company, has announced a partnership with battery developer KeraCel to develop and bring-to-market 3D printed solid-state batteries for the automotive sector. As a strategic partner, Musashi will support the accelerated development of KeraCel’s additive manufacturing technology for solid-state batteries in order to scale…
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