The latest developments in these technologies in Additive Manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D Printing, and the scope for, and limitations on, their use in industry will be discussed in the new “3D Metal Printing” trade forum at Rapid.Tech, the international trade show and conference for Additive Manufacturing, which takes place from 14 to 16 June 2016 in Erfurt, Germany.
Various applications in fields such as aviation and medical engineering illustrate that Additive Manufacturing processes offer completely new levels regarding product design, efficiency, speed and flexibility in the production of series parts. It is therefore hardly surprising that growing numbers of companies are investigating the industrial use of AM technologies. However, standards in series production are significantly more rigorous than in prototyping. “IT integration in product life cycle management (PLM), continuous processes from concept to finished component and reproducibility are fundamental prerequisites for industrialisation,” explains Helmut Zeyn, Business Development Additive Manufacturing at Siemens Industry Software GmbH. Helmut Zeyn will also present innovative developments that enable manufacturers seeking to integrate AM processes into existing production lines to meet the requirements of modern series production for process reliability, process monitoring, traceability and data exchange.
The different trade forums will start after the keynote presentation. In the inaugural “3D Metal Printing” trade forum, the introductory talk by Jannis Kranz of Materialise will examine the potential for producing metal components, including parts with hollow, lattice or protruding structures.
Based on successful applications he will demonstrate that it is no longer the limitations of manufacturing technology but rather component functionality that drives the design of metal components – provided that developers recognise the design freedoms and opportunities offered by AM technologies, and make intelligent use of them. Simon Höges of GKN Sinter Metals Engineering GmbH will present water atomisation as a cost-effective alternative to the more conventional gas atomisation of metal powders. He will compare the microstructure and mechanical properties of components produced by laser melting of water-atomised 316L stainless steel powder with those produced from gas-atomised powder. His session will show that, when combined with the higher production speeds enabled by recent innovations, water atomisation significantly increases the range of possible applications for the series production of 3D-printed metal components.
The expanding range of metal powders on the market is also a key factor, as Dr.-Ing Matthias Gieseke of Laserzentrum Hannover e.V. will highlight when he discusses the use of selective laser melting (SLM) of the first magnesium powder, Elektron MAP 43, in lightweight designs. He will outline the results of his study calculating the particle sizes, processing parameters and structures required to produce specimen components with a density of over 99 percent.
Challenges and solution approches of Additive Manufacturing with metals in series production will be discussed by Oliver Kaczmarzik of Concept Laser GmbH. He will examine issues ranging from how to increase productivity with a modular approach that combines several AM units and automated processes, to the physical separation of the construction, pretreatment and post-processing phases, all the way to the integration of AM machines in manufacturing to Industry 4.0 standards. Both the medical technology and aviation sectors use electron beam melting (EBM) in the production of series parts.
As with all sessions at the Rapid.Tech conference, simultaneous interpretation (German<>English) will be provided for presentations at the trade forum “3D Metal Printing”. The new trade forum is organised by Dr. Yves Küsters, Corporate Technology, Research in Energy and Electronics, Siemens AG. Küsters has been working on SLM for almost ten years and was awarded his PhD for his thesis on “Methodological Parameters for a Robust Blasting Process”.
