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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Australian metal additive manufacturing company Titomic has made further inroads into the defense market, this time in the United States. The company has announced a strategic partnership with American global product development and technology company Triton Systems Inc through which its Titomic’s Kinetic Fusion (TKF) process will be implemented for…
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Weapon industry firms in Italy are considered strategic assets and are therefore not subjected to the same forced closures of other less strategic national assets. So Beretta, one of the largest arms makers in the world, decided to chip in with the effort to produce needed medical parts by making…
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Global sciences company Royal DSM has announced an expanded partnership with JuggerBot 3D, a 3D printer manufacturer based in Youngstown, Ohio. The aim of the collaboration is to advance fused granulate fabrication (FGF) and drive its industrialization by developing high-performance pellet-based 3D printers and materials. Pellet materials are something of…
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The Austria-based AM 4 Industry research network has published a comprehensive manual for tooling engineers to simulate additively manufactured cooling channels using OpenFoam, an open-source software platform. The guide was compiled by researchers from the Johannes Kepler University in Linz. AM 4 Industry is a €2.1 million CORNET project that…
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In order to push the boundaries of innovation for every toy that is designed, the Giochi Preziosi R&D team leverages several technologies – with Stratasys additive manufacturing at the forefront. Giochi Preziosi recently approached Stratasys’ local partner, Energy Group, to purchase a Stratasys J750 – the world’s only full color,…
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A collaboration between engineering company Renishaw, Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) and Canadian industrial design firm Biome Renewables has resulted in the production of 80% more cost-effective 3D printed ocean turbine components. Additive manufacturing also enabled the partners to speed up the parts’ development times to just two months. Based…
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Just a few days ago, Aidro presented its first serially manufactured AMES valves for improved flow, now GKN Additive is highlighting ongoing work on 3D printed hydraulic block subassemblies. Additive manufacturing of hydraulic applications, like hydraulic blocks (adapter blocks), is a powerful alternative to traditional manufacturing methods such as subtractive…
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HD3-AMES are metal 3D printed directional control valves with a 316L stainless steel body and solenoid actuators, with a subplate mounting interface, built to meet ISO 4401 and DIN 24340 (CETOP 03) standards. The valve body was produced by Aidro, an innovative Italian company that was among the first to…
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The issue of spare parts and replacement parts is a major issue for all defense forces, In particular, Indian 3D printing service provider think3D reports that this has been a major issue plaguing the Indian Navy. Many of the machines present in the Navy are very old and, in most…
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Maritime assets are capital intensive, and downtime is costly. Replacement of marine spare parts involves many actors in the supply chain and can be costly in terms of inventory, logistics, and cost of spare parts (especially for obsolete parts). For these reasons, three key Singaporean organizations, such as the local…
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