A specialists’ conference called “Inside 3D Printing” will be held on 24 and 25 February 2016 ,at the Düsseldorf Exhibition Centre, in parallel to the METAV 2016. It will cover the conference’s entire spectrum of additive manufacturing with metals and plastic components. The watchword is no longer printing instead of metal-cutting, but increasingly printing and metal-cutting. Hybrid machines are on the advance: they are extending field-proven metal-cutting techniques to include the multifaceted options offered by additive manufacturing in a single workspace.
The integration of additive manufacturing processes into the metal-cutting operation, in the estimation of Dr. Eric Klemp, Commercial E Director of the Direct Manufacturing Research Centre (DMRC) at Paderborn University, and responsible for the programme of the “Inside 3D Printing” conference at the METAV 2016, offers a series of options and additional benefits for the user. “By combining material build-up and removal in a single machine, functions can be integrated in a way hitherto impossible. For instance, different kinds of material can be used in a single manufacturing process. One additional benefit is that the process incorporates the long years of expertise accumulated by the machine tool manufacturers.” The 3D expert sees further advantages in the options available for mass production and standardisation, plus the aspects of accuracy, reproducibility, production of undercuts, utilising freedom of form, and material savings. Not least, two processes are being merged with each other, which helps to synergise the advantages of both.
From the METAV 2016, the expert is expecting a fruitful exchange of new and views with the machinery manufacturers, further stimulating input and detailed statements, initial components, and above all a chance to see corresponding machines live in action.