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TECHNOLOGY FOR THE PRODUCT LIFECYCLE

SPRING 2017 |

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The very best in Additive Manufacturing

features, reviews and product stories from the

SHOW SPECIAL leading product development technology magazine

DEVELOP3D.COM 2017 1 3D PRINTED BIKES GAS TURBINES METALS PRINTING 3D PRINTERSPRING REVIEWS

FUTURE FRAMEWORK » By merging aerospace engineering know-how with a passion for mountain biking, Robot Bike Company is setting out to produce the most technically advanced bikes to go wild on the trails, Stephen Holmes meets the team

n cycling – whether on the pristine boards of the velodrome, the Parisian cobbles of the Tour De France, or the muck and gravel of the trails – lightweight is king. This desire to shave grams off its two-wheeled creations is why the Robot Bike Company (RBC), which is based near Monmouth in Wales, is turning to optimised design and 3D printing. The challenge the company set itself was to create a fully customisable bike frame for full production, which could make the best of 3D printed titanium brackets and fixtures, connecting strong, light, carbon fibre tubes. Christened the R160, nobody is under any illusion that it will be a mass market product. These will be high end, built to order and personally tailored to an individual’s weight, height, and riding style – but they will, in RBC’s words, be the ‘best bike frames possible’. “If you are trying to produce the very best frame it makes no sense to then only offer it in a small number of sizes when the people you are selling it to come in all shapes and sizes,” says RBC CEO Ed Haythornthwaite, adding that customers should think of Robot Bike Company as the “Savile Row of the bike world.” Like the made-to-measure suits this bespoke elegance comes at a cost starting at over £4,000 with a production lead time of four weeks.

PARTNERING UP Founded in 2013 by a crack team of bike designers, riders, fixers and crashers, RBC has considerable experience in mountain bike design. However, despite its in-house design and engineering skills, in order to turn its ambition into a workable business, the team realised that it would require multiple partnerships with industry experts. So, it approached HiETA Technologies, a specialist in design and engineering solutions for additive manufacturing technologies. 2 SPRING 2017 DEVELOP3D.COM

Based in the Bristol and Bath Science Park, HiETA employs 25 specialist engineers to cover the full product design, manufacturing readiness and project management. Mike Adams CEO of HiETA, says: “One of the great aspirations of additive manufacturing has always been mass customisation. “Leading this project has allowed us to see integration of all the elements – a great new frame design, the use of state of the art software tools for optimisation and automation, the flexibility of the manufacturing process itself and effective collaboration between our partners is a great advert for the technologies and the South West of England showcasing that the aspiration is becoming a reality.”

OPTIMISING THE DESIGN The design was split into sections, between carbon fibre framework and the connecting nodes that would be 3D printed in titanium. Altair ProductDesign, simulation software specialist Altair’s in-house design team, was made responsible for the optimisation of the bike’s additively manufactured connectors. Using SolidThinking Inspire, the Altair team was able to maximise the benefit of additive manufacturing by identifying where material in the connectors could be removed to save weight and reduce part count without compromising performance. Although the optimisation technology is more commonly used in high-end automotive and aerospace industries to maximise product performance, it is equally valuable to bike manufacturers. Altair ProductDesign’s first task was to perform the optimisation studies on each node in the frame as early in the design process as possible. This way they could find a material efficient design that met the required performance characteristics and could be sized for different riders’ specifications.

The Robot Bike Company R160 full suspension mountain bike in action on the trails

 If you are trying to produce the very best frame it makes no sense to then only offer it in a small number of sizes Ed Haythornthwaite, RBC CEO



The existing RBC node designs were taken into the Inspire virtual environment and a variety of loading data that the bike frame would be required to withstand during use was applied. The software output a new geometry layout maximising the efficiency of the material layout while still achieving all performance targets.

BENEFITS OF TECHNOLOGY Throughout the process the new designs had to also be optimised for the additive manufacturing process, which included determining the ideal print angle and placement of the supporting structure to avoid the component collapsing during manufacturing. This process was conducted in conjunction with HiETA Technologies. In addition to designing weight efficient components, Altair ProductDesign was also able to look for opportunities to simplify the frame design to lower the cost of production. One such example was the chain stay lug which was originally a three-piece assembly of two symmetric titanium components and an interlinking carbon fibre tube. Utilising both solidThinking’s Inspire for optimisation, and Evolve for final part refinement, the team was able to build in the additive manufacturing requirements from HiETA Technologies, to redesign the lug as a single component, optimised for mass, performance, and manufacturing cost. “This has been a very interesting and exciting project to be involved with,” comments Paul Kirkham, Altair’s project team leader. “Additive manufacturing is the perfect partner for design optimisation techniques as it allows us to produce components and systems that are far closer to the ideal balance of weight and performance. “Robot Bike Company now have a design that will offer its customers a bike that is truly innovative and unique.”

INTO PRODUCTION The final parts were produced in the UK by Renishaw, with the company lending further expertise in 3D printing the parts, post processing machining and metrology to deliver the custom titanium nodes. Renishaw’s Marc Saunders, director of the company’s Global Solutions Centres, suggests that this kind of project is where the benefits of additive manufacturing shine through. He adds: “This typifies the approach that we are taking with our Solutions Centres, where we are working closely with our customers to create designs that maximise the production and lifetime benefits that can be gained from using an additive manufacturing process.” Combining advanced software, the latest manufacturing processes and bespoke geometry, the R160 project is at the leading edge of mountain bike technology, but one open to anyone that wants to pelt down mountain trails for the foreseeable future. robotbike.co

The final £4,000 build Robot bike

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TALE OF THE JET AGE

» For almost two decades the Jet Age Museum in Gloucester has struggled to bring a Hawker Typhoon aircraft back to the city of its birth. Stephen Holmes reports

was relying on a set of authentic 1938 drawings of the part and a borrowed set for a limited timeframe. When traditional manufacturers failed to accurately reproduce the parts, the team turned to nearby Renishaw. Eager to help, the global engineering company figured it could produce the unconventional brackets for the cockpit using the latest metal 3D printing technology. “The Hawker Typhoon is an incredibly important part of Gloucester’s heritage,” explains Trevor Davies, Typhoon sponsor coordinator of the Jet Age Museum. “Our workshop containing the Typhoon cockpit is less than a mile away from where they manufactured the original aircraft in the 1930s.To bring an original Typhoon back to the city would not only be an incredible engineering achievement, but would be like recreating history. “The unique shape of the brackets meant that although we had the original drawings, CNC machining companies weren’t confident they could produce an accurate finished part. When we heard about Renishaw’s additive manufacturing capabilities and the design flexibility the technology offers, we got in touch hoping the company could help us.” The original drawings the Jet Age Museum have for the Typhoon date back to 1938 and all the measurements are in imperial units, while one drawing was completely missing. “We had to estimate the dimensions from the incomplete set of original drawings – using conventional measurement tools and equipment such as a digital vernier and shadowgraph we were able to obtain most of the missing critical dimensions, while estimating non critical ones, then convert them from metric to imperial,” describes Joshua Whitmore, a development technician at Renishaw. “The process was more time consuming, but we managed to produce prototypes after about two weeks.”

he Hawker Typhoon – or “Tiffy” as it was affectionately known to the Royal Air Force (RAF) – was a British single-seater fighter-bomber manufactured almost exclusively by the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company. Designed and built during the Second World War to match the performance of the formidable German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 at low altitudes, its added ability to act as a ground-attack aircraft cemented the Typhoon’s place as a wartime hero. With only 3,317 Typhoons ever made, few have lasted, with none currently in flying condition, so in 1998, when an almost complete – but exceedingly corroded – cockpit section was found at a scrap yard in Wiltshire, volunteers vowed to restore an aircraft with a rich national and regional importance. Local to the birthplace of the Typhoon in Gloucester, the Jet Age Museum has taken on the project, pushing forward with the work needed to make it display ready.

COCKPIT CONNECTION Key to the structure was a set of brackets, for which the originals were missing, and replacements could not be sourced anywhere. Such was their scarcity, the museum 4 SPRING 2017 DEVELOP3D.COM

A RAF Typhoon — or ‘Tiffy’ — in its heyday

READ THE FULL ARTICLE @ tinyurl.com/D3D-JET3D

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LEARNING TO MELT METAL » Spencer Wright on the capabilities and limitation of metals 3D printing, what it’s like to enter the industry today and what he’s learned along the way

round three years ago, curious about how the next generation of aerospace parts was being made, I began researching metals 3D printing. I’d moved to New York recently, and at the time MakerBot and Shapeways were really humming. Distributed manufacturing and generative design were in the air, and I was fresh with ideas from my time managing a small robotics development shop. I was intrigued. My interest is in engineered, mechanical products. I’ve used SLS and FDM for prototypes and tools, but I wanted to find uses for 3D printing metals that resulted in commercial products – things that people actually go out and buy. I also wanted to test whether 3D printing could really make distributed manufacturing possible – and how much design freedom it really offered. So after a few bike rides spent thinking about applications that might work, I spent a weekend designing a titanium seatmast topper. As potential markets for metals 3D printing go, high-end road cycling is an excellent candidate. Reductions in weight and wind resistance are incredibly valuable. Custom, bespoke designs are

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highly prized. Sales cycles are relatively short, making just-in-time production attractive, and demand in the high-end market tends to be price-inelastic. Just as important, though, was the fact that cycling is something that engineers across industries tend to have some fondness for. As I began my research, I found people eager to apply their industrial knowledge to something more human-scale, and that shared interest gave me a leg up in understanding the capabilities and constraints of the technology. So: how could I design a product that took advantage of what additive manufacturing had to offer?

PROCUREMENT Throughout my career, I’ve relied on close relationships with suppliers to make sure that I’m aiming in the right direction. When I began looking at metals 3D printing in earnest, I used the same strategy that I’ve used in the past: searching out any information I could on the technology; modelling up an initial design; calling job shops to get feedback, advice and cost estimates. But here arose the first problem: Unlike conventional manufacturing, metal AM has a relatively small install base. I

started my work not too long after GE acquired Morris Technologies, leaving an immediate hole in the supply chain for 3D printed aerospace parts. The number of companies offering metal 3D printing services in the US was only a few dozen, with many specialising in one particular industry. But more problematic than access to parts (or even a competitively priced market) was access to information. Metal AM has only penetrated a few industries and, within those industries, a few key clients dominate overall production capacity. Expertise is clustered in pockets, and remarkably little of it exists in the public domain. The metal 3D printing machine manufacturers are old school. They have close relationships with big OEMs, but often aren’t connected to the end use customers pushing the technology forward. And when they do have time to develop application guidelines, they’re often distributed privately in PowerPoints – leaving very little useful information in public. On the other hand, job shops usually don’t have the capacity to do real customer development themselves. Most of them are tied up with a handful of big clients, and it can be very difficult for them to put much effort into building inroads into new industries and markets. More broadly, almost nobody in the industrial 3D printing industry is good about working in public. Very few end users, job shops, or machine manufacturers have blogs or Twitter accounts, and when I started my research the Wikipedia entry for DMLS was only a few sentences long. Talking to the job shops was frustrating early on. Some told me flippantly that my part would be no big deal at all. Others said that it really wasn’t a suitable design for additive. Many shops only print in a handful of materials (it’s expensive to switch materials on powder bed fusion machines), and so we’d have speculative conversations about what the cost would be once they got titanium running. Worst of all, the design feedback I got was generally vague. Most job shops have dedicated sales staff, many of whom are engineers by training, but they generally aren’t using the equipment on a regular basis and therefore aren’t really able to – or interested in – talking about the pros and cons of one design or another. But the more I learned about the industry – and the more I shared what I was learning on my blog – the more engineers reached out to me, interested in what I was doing. While the corporate centres of the aerospace, medical and other industries working in metals 3D printing tend to be secretive, I’ve found application and manufacturing engineers at those same companies to be both interested and excited to share their expertise with someone on the fringes. Many of them outwardly expressed frustration with the industry’s level of secrecy.

MANUFACTURING Throughout my journey, I’ve tried to remain technologyagnostic. In general, I’ve focused on two processes, both of which fall under the umbrella of Metal Powder Bed Fusion. Because it has a much higher install base in the US, my early experiments were all with laser-based machines. (You’ll often hear this referred to as ‘DMLS’, though technically that’s a trade name.) More recently I’ve experimented with Electron Beam Melting (EBM). With each part that I’ve printed, my aim has been to achieve a better understanding of a specific aspect of the technology. In the beginning, I focused on learning the constraints of building thin-walled structures (spoiler: they’re significant). Then I worked to validate whether metals 3D printing could indeed be used to make a functional part (spoiler: it can). Now, I’m pursuing two parallel paths. On the one hand, I’m working with some of the most

advanced design software in the world to try to create truly optimised designs. On the other, I’m going through the practical exercise of optimising my manufacturing processes to meet the needs of my customers. Throughout the process, I’ve had incredible help from Dustin Lindley at the University of Cincinnati Research Institute; Dave Bartosik at DRT Medical-Morris; Martijn Vanloffelt and Tom DeBruyne at Layerwise; Marcus Schroeder at EFBE; and the whole team (Rich, Dave, and Cesar) at Addaero. All of these people have a genuine interest in using their knowledge and expertise to help my product development process while also spreading more awareness of the technology in the wider world. The fact of the matter is that metal AM is still a technology in its infancy. Despite the incredible advances that DMLS and EBM have made in the past five years – and the shocking pace of growth in the industry over that same timespan – they’re still very much in the R&D stage. And given my original curiosity in distributed manufacturing and truly innovative design, I feel strongly that it’s in everyone’s interest to get metals 3D printing to the point where it’s a stable, predictable process. As a result, I’ve been careful to share as much as I can about what my manufacturing partners and I think about both the process and the product at hand. The more people who know how the industry works, the healthier the market for metals 3D printed products will be. Ultimately, sharing my own experience will only speed up my efforts.

An EBM seatpost part (printed by Addaero Manufacturing) as its support structures are removed Credit: Spencer Wright

FINDINGS At this point in my own process, I’ve validated a number of basic points: first, that it’s possible to print functional bike parts; second, that at least a certain set of customers find 3D printed bike parts appealing; third, that the cost structure of those parts is at least close to what it needs to be to create a self-sustaining business. On the manufacturing side, I’ve learned a lot about the limitations of DMLS and EBM, in particular with respect to building thin-walled structures with mechanical features. I’ve also spent a bit of time working with design optimisation (topology and shape) software, and navigating the convoluted software tool chain from NURBS, to optimisation, to build prep. Many of the details I’ve learned are recounted on my blog, but suffice to say that the current workflow is disjointed, inefficient and you don’t always get a usable design at the end of it. I’ve also learned something about what expertise in metals 3D printing really means. Working with a nascent technology can be frustrating and expensive. But with the right guidance, a collaborative mindset and enough elbow grease, it’s possible to make meaningful progress in a matter of months. Of course, there are significant barriers. Learning the design for manufacturing process really requires access to a metal 3D printing machine, and even then it’s a process of trial and error. And without an understanding of how a part is being modified in order to print successfully, it’s nearly impossible to improve upon the underlying design. Additionally, the industry is constantly shifting – so any knowledge you acquire today may be out of date in six months’ time. That said, I’m excited for the future of the technology. And in the coming months, I’ll be working hard on developing my parts further – and pushing the industry as a whole forward, too. This article first appeared in the October 2015 edition of DEVELOP3D. Spencer Wright is a designer, operations strategist, and blogger and works for nTopology inc. pencerw.com/feed | ntopology.com DEVELOP3D.COM SPRING 2017 7

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ON THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING » Greg Corke caught up with HP to talk about its Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing technology and how it believes it can change the way we think about manufacturing

ast May, HP finally pulled back the curtain on its long awaited Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing technology, which will eventually be capable of producing functional production parts from multiple materials in multiple colours. Prototyping is an obvious key application, and HP plans to aggressively target this sector from the off with the promise of low cost, high speed production of parts. Longer term, however, it has much bigger aspirations. “The [3D printing] market has grown a lot but it’s still in the order of a 4 to 5 billion dollar market,” says HP’s Scott Schiller, VP of market development at HP 3D printing. “And there’s a $14 trillion overall manufacturing market so the question is ‘do you want to sit here in this little pool or do you want to take some really proactive steps to start advancing the state of the art?” For 3D printing to really take off in manufacturing, machines not only need to produce accurate, functional parts, optimised for strength and surface finish, but quality needs to be predictable and consistent; the whole process streamlined and, eventually, automated. HP is addressing this in two ways – first, through its closed loop thermal control system, which helps provide full control over the mechanical properties of parts, and second, by keeping its processing station separate from its printing station, which enables production to operate continuously, as the print station is not tied up waiting for parts to cool down. While additive manufacturing is usually associated with very short run or custom manufacturing, HP believes that Multi Jet Fusion can actually be relevant to larger scale production. Here, one of its key examples is a 1.5inch diameter gear. 2,500 of these functional parts can be produced every 6 to 8 hours in a single build on one of its 3D printers, explains Alex Monino, worldwide marketing & sales strategy director, HP 3D Printers. This in itself is impressive, but the assertion that it would be cheaper to print 55,000 or less of these parts than it would manufacture them by traditional means gives a whole different perspective on the technology. With larger parts, he admits, this number would be in the 1,000s. However, it’s not just about direct cost comparisons. With injection moulding, all 55,000 gears would have to be manufactured at the same time, in the same location, explains Monino. With 3D printing you have flexibility in both numbers and where the parts are manufactured.

“You can decide that maybe you don’t want to print them all in China, so all the inventory or logistic savings you will have because of that [by manufacturing smaller batches, locally], they’re not counted in the 55,000. If you count that, then you would move that [breakeven point] even further,” he comments. Monino adds that HP will provide tools to help users make decisions on the applicability of Multi Jet Fusion to different manufacturing jobs, “They’ll be able to basically – for any given part – consult them and say, what will be the breakeven point versus another given technology.” Even when firms are committed to tooling, HP says that additive manufacturing can be used to bridge production bottlenecks and help bring those first products to market faster. “You get a tool because you’re going to make a million of something,” explains J Scott Schiller, VP market development at HP 3D Printing, “but you have to wait 16 weeks for the tool to be done. [With 3D printing] you can do your first 1,000 products [straight off].” This ability to manufacture products quickly also makes 3D printing attractive to startups. It not only offers a way to create their first physical products without big upfront tooling costs, but can also help them innovate in their product development process. “You’ve got engineers doing their capstone projects,” explains Schiller, referencing a University of Louisville (UofL) project with FirstBuild that provides students with access to state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment. “They’re supported by Indiegogo where you have crowd funding and crowd sourcing of ideas and approval and interest, identifying opportunities that would never otherwise be found. “There’s this area between making one bespoke thing because you’re a bit of an inventor and getting to mass scale production. And now I think people are starting to recognise the sort of recipe of what’s necessary in order to fill that gap. I think there’s going to be an explosion of lots of new ideas. READ THE FULL ARTICLE @ tinyurl.com/future-HP

By keeping the processing station separate from the 3D printing station, production with HP Multi Jet Fusion can operate continuously, as the print station is not tied up waiting for parts to cool down

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FINE PRINT

n a bid to create one of the most efficient gas turbines in the world Siemens has produced the SGT5-8000H, which boasts a gross power output of 425MW. The Siemens Energy Sector team based in Görlitz, Germany, was keen to showcase the capabilities of this turbine at trade shows and customer presentations and so turned to its partner in the 3D printing arena – Berlin-based 3YOURMIND – to help it produce a scale model of the turbine. Siemens and 3YOURMIND have worked together since 2013 on various projects but for this most recent one, because the SGT-8000H series turbine represented such a large efficiency gain, Siemens wanted the model to showcase these advances. 3YOURMIND proposed a motorised model to illustrate the movement of the turbine. This would not only be eye catching but would also help representatives explain the unique flow processes within the turbine. “Siemens wanted to make a more significant impact with this model, so the size is larger than previous models we’ve done, the model has been painted to increase the realism and the motorisation was added in order to better visualise the air-flow within the turbine,” explains Brian Crotty, marketing director at 3YOURMIND. The size decided upon was 40cm – a scale of 26:1 from the orginal, which stands at 10.5 metres tall. “This size was determined to be the optimum for display purposes

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» Shrinking down a 10.5 metre tall Siemens gas turbine to just 40cm and then adapting it for 3D printing isn’t as easy as it may sound. Tanya Weaver finds out why

as a high level of detail in the geometry can be preserved and it would still be easy to transport,” says Crotty.

GETTING READY FOR PRINT Time was of the essence because the Solid Edge CAD data was provided to the 3YOURMIND modelling team just five weeks prior to the first live presentation of the turbine. The team had to adapt and scale the parts before the model could be 3D printed. And it’s not just a case of shrinking the model down either. In fact, Crotty explains that a complete recreation of the model was needed. “Every detail was individually analysed and then either kept, remodelled or rejected. Small details such as screws are removed to reduce ‘noise’ on the final print. “We also had to combine design components into single parts and some parts of the model had to be made modular such as removing the upper casing. And, of course, the motor and bearings had to be added into the design,” he comments. The turbine’s rotor is propelled by an electric motor and hiding the DC stepper and driver, which is operated by a remote, within the 3D print proved challenging. “Since this was the first motorisation, we tested three different strengths to determine the best speed/force ratio for the model. The final model can actually alternate between three different speed settings,” says Crotty. READ THE FULL ARTICLE @ tinyurl.com/D3D-FINE

 Every detail was individually analysed and then either kept, remodelled or rejected. Brian Crotty, 3YOURMIND’s marketing director

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HANDS ON REVIEWS Markforged Mark Two In this in-depth two part review Al Dean looks at the basics of this 3D printer then delves deeper into its fibre composite capabilities READ THE FULL ARTICLE @ tinyurl.com/D3D-markforged

Makerbot Replicator+ Since the Stratasys aquisition, the Makerbot range has been through some issues but latest Replicator variant is a sophisticated, polished desktop machine thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great value for money READ THE FULL ARTICLE @ tinyurl.com/D3D-makerbot

FormLabs Form 2 When Formlabs launched in 2014, it brought stereolithography to the desktop for the first time. The Form 2 improves on the first-gen machines to deliver a more reliable, user-friendly experience READ THE FULL ARTICLE @ tinyurl.com/D3D-formlabs DEVELOP3D.COM SPRING 2017 11

INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH » Stratasys’ latest concept machines show that 3D printing is readying itself for manufacturing end parts of any size. When Stephen Holmes visited its HQ he found an R&D department bristling with action

espite falling from mainstream attention, 3D printing technologies are still developing at pace as the focus towards end-use parts becomes the new battleground. The key factors of materials, repeatability, scale and speed are all improving, and as a result, 3D printing has grabbed the attention of mainstream manufacturers across all industries. Few are better placed to confirm this than Stratasys. One of the original ‘Big Two’ 3D printing companies, alongside 3D Systems, it is now faced with much wider competition as it looks to develop technology to take manufacturing to the next level. Having invited us to its headquarters in Eden Praire, Minnesota, USA, the company unveiled its latest concept machines as it looks to push the boundaries of one of its strongest products – Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM)

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Stratasys’ Infinite Build concept adds automation to the FDM process, to the delight of manufacturers

– which Stratasys founder Scott Crump developed over 30 years ago. The first machine, Infinite Build, has flipped the traditional FDM 3D printing process on its side and grows parts horizontally from the build platform that are, in theory, of infinite length. The addition of new micro pellet material canisters allows for increased automation of stock fills and material changeovers in what is a multi-material machine. While detailed realtime print feedback is already enabled, there’s also scope to add other tools to the arm controlling the printhead, such as metrology inspection or even CNC machining tools. The second new machine, positioned behind a plexiglass shield, relies on the ability of a giant orange robotic arm and turntable that combine to create a 3D printer extruder head with 11 degrees of freedom – removing the need for build supports and allowing for continuous thread layering for composite materials like carbon fibre. Both are developments on existing technologies, featuring

1 upgrades most notably to printheads and materials stock, but both have captured the imagination of manufacturers looking to build parts of ever more complicated shapes from plastics and composites. “We don’t see the development as moving away from prototyping toward serial part manufacturing. We see them as complimentary,” suggests Scott Sevcik, Stratasys’ director of manufacturing platform development. “In fact, it increases the demand. “Today, our technologies are used to prototype parts that are then manufactured with another means. As a result, we don’t fully utilise the design freedom of 3D printing in prototyping, because we must consider the limitations of the final production method. “When a part is being designed to utilise the design freedom and will be in production as a printed part, there is no other way to prototype that part than with 3D printing. So as we see increased adoption in production additive manufacturing, we see prototyping growing to support.”

MATERIALS MAGIC The ability to print high performance thermoplastics that have direct relevance in manufacturing means there has already been an adoption of existing technologies for production parts in aerospace – such as some non-flight critical parts on current Airbus models. However, the increase in part size from the Infinite Build concept machine and the certified strength of plastics such as Stratasys’ Ultem material, now allow for entire passenger aircraft interior panels to be produced. Customised logos can be added to each panel without the need for individual tooling, while other parts – such as hooks and fasteners – can be built into a single part. While new players to the industry have announced open source materials development by third parties, Stratasys is continuing to develop its range of thermoplastics in-house. While this might seem limiting, the company cites that materials development forms a large portion of its sizeable R&D budget, which totalled at $90 million across all departments over the last four financial quarters. This spans the current ‘off the shelf’ range of FDM materials, while customers needing more made to measure characteristics can call on Stratasys’s research and development team to create a ‘development material’. Stratasys had developed FDM Ultem 9085 for aircraft interior parts, however Airbus and other aerospace customers required material traceability and assured consistency in order to use the material in applications certified by the FAA. As a result of this experience Stratasys introduced its ‘certified material products’, a range of verified materials

3 1 With 11 axis of ●

movement, the Robotic Composite 3D Demonstrator adds automation to composite thermoplastic builds — like this missile nose cone 2 Automating ●

the materials changeovers adds speed and variability to the FDM process 3 Stratasys has ●

worked hard to increase its number of certified materials for end use parts

that is in the process of rapidly expanding. “In manufacturing, the application dictates the properties required of the material. We’ve had customers approach us with fantastic applications, but the available material set couldn’t meet the needs. Earlier this year, for example, NASA disclosed that they had installed several parts for a satellite that we had printed in a custom-developed ESD PEKK [Electrostatic Discharge resistant Polyetherketoneketone] material to meet their requirements. More materials with properties targeting specific applications or use cases, such as this, will be key to expanded adoption in manufacturing,” suggests Sevcik. One additional change to the Infinite-Build and RoboticComposite machines is that Stratasys is exploring alternate feedstocks with its users, such as the micro-pellet format being used in the concepts. “There are a number of advantages to this approach, and we’re using it here to demonstrate a faster, highly controlled extrusion approach that is also continuously re-fillable. This enables long term, lights-out, operations as well as introducing new possibilities in combining and functionally grading materials.”

AUTOMATING COMPOSITES

‘‘

When we can combine the design freedom of 3D printing with the material advantages of composites, we unlock entirely new classes of parts

’’

Stratasys’ expansion into composites comes at a time where many industries are looking to replace metals for weight savings, but it also comes at a cost due to the high amounts of labour involved. As high volume industries look to adopt more composite parts, automation of part production is necessary, hence the excitement surrounding the 11-axis Robotic Composite 3D Demonstrator, which also eliminates the geometric constraints imposed by the current composite lay-up processes. “When we can combine the design freedom of 3D printing with the material advantages of composites, we unlock entirely new classes of parts,” says Sevcik, a ‘CNC machining man’ by his own description, who is clearly excited by the direction things are taking. “OEMs replace metal parts with composite parts to save weight. If we can optimise the geometry without the constraints of the manufacturing method, as we are able to do with 3D printing, we can take already lightweight composite parts and make them even lighter by only using the material necessary to carry the design load.” An age of composites and advanced thermoplastics is upon us, and as more designers look to take advantage of such materials, it will be down to the likes of Stratasys to ensure new found design freedoms emerging from CAD and simulation tools can be built to industry standards. stratasys.com

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DESKTOP SLA TIPS & TRICKS

Over the last year or so, the DEVELOP3D Workshop has seen more than its fair share of desktop stereolithography machines pass through its doors. Al Dean looks at the machines, how they work and what he’s learnt from using them

he rise of the desktop stereolithography (SLA) machine has been unstoppable in the last year or two. Pretty much since Formlabs launched its Form 1 (though the company wasn’t the first in this area), there’s been a lot of talk around the subject. SLA machines are very different beasts from more widely available FDM machines. Whereas an FDM machine deposits filament layer by layer, an SLA machine uses photo-curable resins and a light source that cures those layers, to build up the 3D form. As a result, a typical FDM machine requires you to break out your part and any supports from the build plate, either manually or, in some higher-end systems, using water-soluble support material. The SLA process, by contrast, is more complex.

many cases, a simple wallpaper scraper), but some have more advanced fixtures that hold the plate in place while you lever off the part (and trust me, it’s very easy to slip and end up, literally, with blood on your hands.) Make sure you’ve got a good working surface. We found that laying down microfibre cloths or non-slip matting is essential.

PART RINSE

Once you’ve got a part, typically with some form of supports on it, you’ll also find you’ve got some uncured resin to deal with, so you’ll need to rinse the part before you break it out of the supports. Most machines are supplied with a rinse tub or two. The idea is that you fill these with a 75/25 mix of isopropyl alcohol and water to remove the uncured resin. While that’s fine, if you’re working to a deadline and PROCESS BASICS need to get the parts ready quicker, we’ve found an As we’ve stated, SLA is a resin-based process and, while ultrasonic parts washer really speeds things up. These each machine differs slightly in the way that it builds, the are relatively simple machines and can be sourced very basics are roughly the same. Once a build is complete, it inexpensively. needs to be removed from the build chamber. The DEVELOP3D workshop has a small unit, purchased Even at this point, there are a few things to bear in mind. from Ebay for around £40 and it’s perfect for the job. You First and foremost, wear gloves. No ifs, no buts – wear them. Photo-curable resins are not particularly pleasant and just fill up the tank with the IPA/water mix, throw in the part and switch the machine on. Ten minutes later, the contact with your skin, however brief, should be avoided. uncured resin is dissolved and you’re ready for the next step. It’s also worth considering wearing eye protection as well. You’ll also need some means to lift your part off the READ THE FULL ARTICLE @ tinyurl.com/desktop-SLA build plate. Most machines come with tools to assist (in

WHAT’S ON DEVELOP3D’S WORKBENCH RADAR NOW? We take a look at the Form 2 later in this issue, but we’ll also be putting Autodesk’s Ember and XYZ Printing’s Nobel through their paces in early 2016

FORMLABS FORM 2

You can read about the Form 2 on page 55 of this issue, but the gist of our review is this: Formlabs has taken the lessons learned over the last models and built a next-generation machine that takes desktop SLA to the next level. formlabs.com

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AUTODESK EMBER

Autodesk acquired London-based start-up Invention Works two years ago and it became its launchpad into the 3D printing industry with the Ember. This machine is small, efficient and terrific at building detailed parts. ember.autodesk.com

XYZ PRINTING NOBEL

Backed by Chinese mega-manufacturer, Kinpo Group, XYZ Printing delivers very low-cost FDM printers and 3D scanners. The Nobel is its first foray into SLA and at just over £1,000, it’s cheap. We intend to find out if it can perform. xyzprinting.com

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