TCT Europe 27.4 by TCT Magazine

DESIGN-TO-MANUFACTURING INNOVATION

MAG EUROPE EDITION VOLUME 27 ISSUE 4

www.tctmagazine.com

BRAKE-THROUGH BUGATTI BUILDS HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPONENTS WITH SLM SOLUTIONS

AUTOMOTIVE Innovation from the race track to the consumer

ENTERTAINMENT

TCT SHOW

How 3D printing is impacting the worlds of sport and fashion

A design-to-manufacturing guide to TCTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flagship event

VOLUME 27 ISSUE 4 ISSN 1751-0333

EDITORIAL

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Laura Gilmour, Melanie Lang, Katherine Prescott, and Wai Yee Yeong. Four names you need to know, and the four finalists for the first-ever Women in 3D Printing Innovator Award set to be announced at this year’s TCT Award’s ceremony (more on p.46).

The award was founded in collaboration with the TCT Group and Women in 3D Printing, an organisation which promotes achievements and opportunities for women in the sector. TCT has been working with the organisation since 2017, along with partner company Cyant, on a number of female-led panel sessions and with another planned for this year’s TCT Show (preview on p.40), the award felt like a fitting celebratio of those efforts. You might be thinking (and many have asked) “why do we need a Women in 3D Printing award?” Well, here’s why … Those who have been in this industry for 30 years took the news as an opportunity to offer up countless names of women they had worked with back in the early days. “True pioneers of 3D printing”, they said. The problem is, when it comes to industry recognition or thought leadership, those pioneers are not the ones you’ll usually hear about. Case in point, there were many names on the long list for this very award that I was unfamiliar with, yet after reading their profiles and achievements, I couldn’t understand how they had escaped my radar. Having representation and putting role models at the forefront does matter. I was reminded of this back in March when, after years of the Marvel Universe failing to produce a standalone female superhero movie, I couldn’t help but tear up watching Captain Marvel prove to the cynics that a female superhero can indeed make a billion-dollar movie and left feeling invincible. There were so many young girls in that cinema who would have left feeling the same. We may not have super powers but I hope that this award can be a similar source of inspiration. I hope that the names of those four nominees, who are already making waves in their respective fields, will be on those same lists reeled off by colleagues, not just in the case of awards like this but in wider conversations, when seeking out speakers, thought-leadership pieces, and so on. There is always more to be done, and we are working on it, like many in the industry, to close the gap in our output (and we’re open to learning how we can do better laura.griffiths@rapidnews.com). Until that happens, however, the more awards, panels, initiatives, whatever it takes to keep things moving in the right direction, the better.

27.4 / www.tctmagazine.com / 05

VOLUME 27 ISSUE 4

COVER STORY

CASTING

8. BRAKE-THROUGH

Bugatti builds functional components for highperformance vehicles with SLM Solutions metal 3D printing.

AUTOMOTIVE

23. POISE MEANS PRIZES

Sam talks to Brafe Engineering about how 3D printing is fast becoming a key revenue driver for the UK-based foundry machine shop.

24. SAND 3D PRINTING: THE DOS AND DON’TS Dave Rittmeyer at Hoosier Pattern provides words of wisdom to anyone planning to use a 3D sand printer.

11. OPEN ROAD, CLOSED SHOP Head of Content Dan O’Connor on frustrations with the automotive additive manufacturing sector in the UK.

13. DRIVING THE DRIVE

Assistant Editor Sam Davies reports on the application of HP’s metal technology in automotive from the opening of its Center of Excellence in Barcelona.

17. WINNING THE MANUFACTURING RACE

Deputy Group Editor Laura Griffiths sits down with NASCAR racing driver and Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing CEO, Brad Keselowski in Detroit.

21. NEWS

A round-up of the biggest stories from this issue’s key focus.

27 Entertainment 27. 3D PRINTING’S BREAKOUT SEASON

Sam gets the lowdown from Carbon and Riddell on the use of 3D technologies in its latest headwear production iteration, the Precision Diamond Helmet.

30. ADDITIVE GOES TO THE BALL Laura takes a closer look at the headline-grabbing collaboration between GE Additive, Protolabs and Zac Posen from this year’s MET Gala.

Research & Academia

37. FUTURE OF AM IN THE UK

Laura reflects on the UK AM research projects spotlighted at this year’s Additive International conference.

39. WHAT IS COMPUTED AXIAL LITHOGRAPHY?

A look at a new volumetric 3D printing processes developed by researchers at University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

TCT SHOW 2019

40. PREVIEW

A guide to design-to-manufacturing from the TCT Show floor.

44. TCT SUMMIT

A preview of TCT’s new user-led conference programme.

46. TCT AWARDS

Find out who the nominees are for the third-annual TCT Awards.

50. THE NEXT LEVEL

Todd Grimm is pleasantly surprised by the progress of some companies in AM.

35. 3D PRINTING FILM FOOTAGE

A study on turning digital film into a physical object using voxel printing.

BRAKE-THROUG BUGATTI BUILDS HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPONENTS WITH SLM SOLUTIONS

etal additive manufacturing (AM) technology is accelerating industrial development in the automotive sector, as shown by the repeated success of French luxury automotive sports car brand Bugatti in achieving consistent function integration and significant performance optimisation of components. Numerous metal 3D printed functional parts from Bugatti have previously featured in the press, including this very magazine, and all were produced on machines developed and manufactured by German metal AM leader SLM Solutions. Sparks fly during the dynamic bench testing of a Bugatti brake caliper, volumetrically the largest functional titanium component built with selective laser melting to be tested. Frank Götzke, Head of New Technologies at Bugatti said the test was: “Proof that additively produced metal components can cope with extreme strength, stiffness and temperature requirements at speeds of over 375 km/h with a braking force of 1.35g and brake disc temperatures up to 1,100°C.” The component was manufactured in the aerospace alloy Ti6Al4V with Fraunhofer IAPT (formerly Laser Zentrum

SHOWN:

UP TO FIVE SLM 800 SYSTEMS CAN BE CONNECTED TO AN SLM HUB

08 / www.tctmagazine.com / 27.4

Nord) and Bionic Production AG on an SLM 500 system featuring four 400W lasers. The caliper test achieved a tensile strength of 1,250 N/mm2 and a material density of over 99.7%. Bugatti utilises selective laser melting not only for lightweighting, but also within the functional scope of its vehicles. A second component, an active spoiler bracket manufactured on an SLM 500, represents this combination aiding the 1,500 hp vehicle to reach speeds of 400 km/h in just 32.6 seconds and bringing it back to a stop in just nine seconds. The active rear spoiler can be adjusted in height and angle, supporting the sophisticated aerodynamics required. “We always strive for absolute perfection, stylistic as well as technical, as well as considering the perfect synergy of both elements – the tradition of Ettore Bugatti we uphold,” Götzke stated. Bugatti teamed with Siemens to optimise the bracket for production and reduce the number of iterations needed to optimise for weight and rigidity. Utilising 3D printed titanium with a tensile strength of 1,250 MPa and a material density of over 99.7%, the spoiler bracket was reduced by 5.4 kg, a weight reduction of 53%, but also increased rigidity without sacrificing any functional benefits.

With fewer sparks but no less intrigue, Bugatti has also developed another small bracket with integrated water cooling, which acts as an active heat shield to boast a remarkable reduction in transferred heat. The motor bracket has been installed in all series vehicles since the delivery of the first Bugatti Chiron from the supercar manufacturer’s production facility in Molsheim, France. The Chiron, like its predecessor, the Veyron, has two separate watercooling circuits to keep the component and system temperatures at an acceptable level, even under the most extreme environmental and operating conditions. The high-temperature circuit is used to cool the 1,500 hp W16 engine of the supercar, while the lowtemperature circuit ensures that the

COVER STORY

UGH

intake charge cooling temperature remains suitably low. A bypass flow filter of the NT circuit supplies the console while isolating the electronic components from the temperatures of the transmission oil tank. The primary task of the bracket is to engage the gears while opening and closing the two clutches of the 7-speed dualclutch transmission while including the control unit. As a result, the temperature at the electric motor and at the control unit of the pump when driving through a demanding handling course can be lowered from 130°C to 90°C, 40°C. The bracket, which was manufactured in the alloy AlSi10Mg on an SLM 280 Twin, was commissioned by SLM Solutions at Rolf Lenk Werkzeugbau GmbH. The origin of this cooperation between the Volkswagen subsidiary Bugatti and the SLM Solutions Group AG dates back to the design, calculation and later production of a bionically optimised front axle differential housing at the turn of 2014/2015. Götzke recalls a meeting more or less by chance in the parking lot of the Volkswagen Tor Ost headquarters in Wolfsburg, stating that this was “... a real stroke of luck” that continues today. Ralf Frohwerk, Global Head of Business Development at SLM Solutions was there from the very beginning as Bugatti’s contact at SLM and emphasises how this chance meeting has resulted in a very trusting cooperation from the outset. Incidentally, that front axle differential housing was manufactured by Audi AG at its locations in Ingolstadt and Györ on two SLM 280 machines, with the objective of comparing the influencing factors of varying locations on component quality. Götzke and Frohwerk gave visitors at the last Formnext event in Frankfurt a clear indication as to how this cooperation will grow in the near future as SLM Solutions exhibited a number of large-scale end-use parts on its booth. The exhibition featured eight Bugatti W16 cylinder head covers as a production study for its large-format SLM 800 capabilities which allowed all eight parts to be created in a single construction job with each hood measuring 285 (L) x 65 (W) x 735 (H) mm. When scaling up for even bigger production runs, up to five of these machines can be connected via an SLM Hub to enable fully automated operation, powder handling and unpacking.

SHOWN: ADDITIVELY MANUFACTURED SPOILER BRACKET ON AN SLM 500

5 SHOWN:

FRONT AXLE DIFFERENTIAL BEFORE AND AFTER BIONIC OPTIMISATION

SHOWN: TESTING THE 3D PRINTED BRAKE CALIPER FROM BUGATTI

27.4 / www.tctmagazine.com / 09

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AUTOMOTIVE OPINION

OPEN ROAD, CLOSED SHOP WORDS: DANIEL O’CONNOR

ominik Rietzel of BMW Group took to the stage at RAPID + TCT 2019 in Motor City Detroit to share the German automotive manufacturer’s work in additive manufacturing (AM). It was an incredibly in-depth and open presentation delving into the documentation, automation, and process analysis that makes BMW a leader in automotive AM. Fast forward two months and I’m sat at a Northern Automotive Alliance (NAA) “Printing the Future” event at FDM Digital Solution’s HQ in Burnley, UK. The aim was to demonstrate the power of additive manufacturing to North West England’s cluster of Automotive OEMs and suppliers that currently employs over 15,000 people. Tony Flanagan, Business Development Manager at FDM Digital, concurs that BMW Group is leading the way when it comes to automotive AM. However, Tony was eager to show me some of the excellent work FDM digital is doing with automotive manufacturers in the UK, with parts that go beyond traditional prototyping into series production. However, there’s a significant caveat to that work, and it could be what is holding back the perception of the UK auto AM market: the willingness to share. It’s not that we’re not doing the work, it’s that we won’t talk about it. Be it British humility, be it a hoarding of knowledge or be it a worry of perception, I’d argue that if it’s good enough for BMW, it is good enough for us. I asked Dr.-Ing Dominik Rietzel, Head of Manufacturing - Non Metal at BMW Group, why he felt it was important to be open. “We do it so that our current AM Suppliers improve on that basis and our Tier 1/2 suppliers see the current state and the way ahead when using AM today.” The NAA event was designed for exactly this, to give its members, who are Tier 1 and 2 suppliers to the likes of Bentley, Aston Martin, Jaguar Land Rover, and McClaren an overview of the technologies. I asked the

NAA’s Chief Executive, Rowan Egan, what he thought the readiness level of suppliers was like in the UK. “From what I have seen, the majority of Tier 1s and 2s have started on a journey of digitalisation, but could be doing a lot more. It makes sense that companies would turn to the likes of FDM for their initial 3D printing needs, as FDM have the skills and knowledge needed when it may not make sense investing in 3D printing hardware/equipment, which may not initially be fully utilised. In some instances, I have spoken with Tier 1s who are investing in 3D printing companies and purchasing them as part of their group.” At the event, one of the pieces FDM Digital was able to show me under a shroud of secrecy is an armrest that has some design for additive part consolidation techniques, printed using HP Multi Jet Fusion, finished by hand and put into the production model of a particular British sportscar. It’s the kind of application we’d love to have a double-page spread dedicated to and once the part is released and in the wild, hopefully we will do. However, it wasn’t the only such case study by a British car manufacturer worthy of publication I saw at FDM that we frustratingly cannot cover. If you cut TCT open, it bleeds British automotive engineering innovation, from the first event at the British Motor Museum to this year’s TCT Awards held at the National Motorcycle Museum. Two of our expert advisory board members are Graham Tromans, who purchased the first SLA machine in the UK for Jaguar Land Rover, and Pat Warner, responsible for Renault Sport F1’s entire additive output. However, time and again we’re thwarted by overly cautious press offices in the UK, including recently having to pull a 1,000-word article by Laura on a groundbreaking automotive metrology solution for fears that they would be seen to be endorsing the technologies that they already use on a daily basis. Intellectual Property is, of course, of the utmost importance and Dominik Rietzel fully understands why people choose not to share projects in the pipeline. But here in the UK, given the current political climate where the automotive industry needs championing more than ever, we err too much on the side of caution.

27.4 / www.tctmagazine.com / 011

TCT SHOW 2019 STAND A90

AUTOMOTIVE

DRIVING THE DRIVE WORDS: SAM DAVIES

xiting the lab, disposable shoes binned, white lab coats hung up, it’s a left turn past the rows of office cubicles, up the stairs beyond the meeting rooms that flank the corridors, and into a gallery. There are hundreds of teeth moulds in a compact nest. There are dozens of eyewear products in similar formation. There are prosthetics and orthotics. There is a wall plastered with HP on HP components. There are several industrial parts, like roller bearings and air ducts. And there is an automotive display, made up nearly entirely of concept applications, moulds and prototypes, with just a solitary short run production application - that of a window guide rail for BMW’s i8 Roadster. Two cabinets of small parts by the entrance represent all that there so far is of HP’s Metal Jet Fusion technology. The opening of HP’s 150,000 squarefoot Center of Excellence in Barcelona, the tenth building inside its Sant Cugat campus, was celebrated by HP as ‘probably the biggest AM R&D facility in the world.’ GKN’s Guedo Degen later

described it as ‘the biggest statement towards additive I have ever seen.’ It has been designed to provide a platform for collaboration, between users, partners and HP itself, to identify and develop applications which will later be showed off in this room. Heading back out of the gallery, there’s a sense of significant progress in many vertical markets but work still to do in others. Actions need to follow words. Back downstairs in the communal garden sits Philipp Jung, who is set to wave a goodbye to the media contingent and a hello to 150 customers descending on Barcelona that afternoon. He’s had a busy week, moderating a customer session on the first day, then co-hosting a presentation about Siemens’ software integration into HP platforms on the second. In between, he demonstrated the capabilities of the facility – and Siemens’ automated nesting software tools – when turning around a number of air duct parts

6 BOTTOM:

GEAR SHIFT KNOB APPLICATION IN DEVELOPMENT ON HP’S METAL JET FUSION TECHNOLOGY | CREDIT: VOLKSWAGEN AG

overnight to physically present to delegates during the talk. His role at HP is heading up customer success, overseeing the (hopefully) cyclical nature of the adoption and implementation of additive manufacturing (AM). It’s his job to help customers apply AM properly, helping to find parts which work and aligning users with the right partners. But with HP moving between prototyping and mass production, tooling and mass customisation, and in a range of different markets, how does he gauge success? “It’s the printing of parts. That’s probably the most tangible way to measure adoption. How can I measure that more customers are using Multi Jet Fusion, and therefore adopting additive manufacturing? The best way to articulate that is the number of parts,” Philipp told TCT. “I’m not in the business of selling printers,” Christoph Schell, President, 3D Printing, HP, had earlier reinforced. “I’m in the business of selling printed parts.”

DRIVE MY PARTS

“I’M 100% SURE WE DON’T KNOW THE LIMIT OF THESE TECHNOLOGIES.”

Two companies working with HP to get parts into the automotive market are GKN and Volkswagen. The former is helping with the development of Metal Jet Fusion and processable metal powders on the machine, and the latter helping to identify and pioneer metal applications. GKN sells 300,000 tonnes of metal powders a year, manufactures 13 million metal parts a day, and has deployed HP’s metal technology in three locations, two of which are in Germany. VW, meanwhile, has committed to the partnership with a view to applying it within 4

27.4 / www.tctmagazine.com / 013

The Event for

24 25 26 SEPTEMBER 2019 NEC, Birmingham, UK

Being recognised as a world-class company is only achieved by constantly improving every part of your design-to-manufacturing process chain. The pace of development in technology, materials and software is incredible and with over 300 cutting edge exhibitors that CAN help you enhance your design and manufacturing process, it is no surprise that more than 10,000 professionals from product development, engineering and manufacturing functions choose to attend the TCT show every year. Join them this September.

#TCTShow

SHOW

AUTOMOTIVE

6 BELOW:

WINDOW GUIDE RAIL PRODUCED WITH HP’S MULTI JET FUSION TECHNOLOGY AND INSTALLED ON BMW’S I8 ROADSTER | CREDIT: HP

5 ABOVE:

EXTERIOR OF HP’S 3D PRINTING & DIGITAL MANUFACTURING CENTER OF EXCELLENCE IN BARCELONA | CREDIT: HP

‘A LONG WAY TO GO, BUT MORE TO COME’

Sven’s drive translates into the size of parts too. Working with GKN, the two companies are at opposite poles with regards the size of parts they want to push through the metal system. Volkswagen want mass serialisation of structural parts at ‘football size’, while GKN take the position that it’s easier to sinter small parts than large ones.

its mass production Volkswagen brand, rather than one of its luxury brands like Bugatti or Lamborghini. It’s a ‘triangular cooperation’ geared towards the series production of end use parts. VW has a roadmap in place in accordance with the progression of the technology. The immediate focus is on small mass customisation and ‘cosmetic parts’, like customised key fobs and personalised mounted name plates. Through 2019, the partners are looking to move to the functional production of gear shift knobs and mirror mounts. And by 2021, they are targeting safety certified parts in the chassis and engine – Electric vehicles were offered up as a target area, part consolidation being considered key because of the large size of the batteries.

roadmap, but the difference now is I know our vision is the right one.”

“What we expect is we will have car parts in the market and we will want to step up from, on the one hand, parts at golf ball size to tennis ball size to football size, and then on the other hand, start with easy and cosmetic parts, and then static, dynamic, and, at the end, crash-relevant parts,” explained Sven Crull, Head of Design for New Manufacturing Technology at Volkswagen. “Together with HP and GKN, we have made a great step forward in comparison with where we stood nine months ago. It’s the same

“That’s the good thing about working with Sven. He definitely pushes the limit of what we can do with the technology,” underlined Tim.

The process of bringing Metal Jet Fusion to market with applications at the forefront began at HP’s offices in Corvallis, where head of the Metals division Tim Weber is based. HP’s collaboration with GKN and VW has brought about regular meetings in Corvallis, including a series where the idea of printing gear shift knobs arose. An initial print was presented to Sven with a wall thickness of 1.5mm. ‘Pretty good,’ Sven thought, ‘but could you do it with a wall thickness of 1mm?’ When they did, ‘how about 0.7mm?’ and then ‘now 0.5mm.’

“That’s the mindset,” Sven said. “I’m 100% sure we don’t know the limit of these technologies and we have to push ourselves to the limit. We have a great timeframe to push it and bring it on a serial basis so that it’s not just one part, but we can make this part several thousand times with the same quality.”

The third point of this triangle, meanwhile, is concerned primarily about the volume of those parts. The opening of Building Ten in Barcelona came just weeks after SmileDirect announced it had installed 49 Multi Jet Fusion systems and intended to additively manufacture 20 million unique mouth moulds in the next 12 months, about double the amount of parts ever printed with the technology at the time of writing. Breaking down the impact HP’s technology could have on SmileDirect’s business model, Christoph stressed, “That’s what I’m after.” Will he get it in the automotive world? Will he get it with metal? Well, that, in part, is why this facility is here, to not just talk the talk, but drive the drive. “I think it’s realistic that we will get there,” Philipp figured. “The technology works, and this is most important,” Guedo supplemented. “Scepticism is being overcome,” Philipp, again. “A lot of the time customers think of additive manufacturing as a little cottage industry, but once they see the commitment, the R&D that’s behind it, it makes a difference. Volkswagen and GKN came out to Coravllis first. Once they saw that, they were like ‘okay, I get it now, I see what’s happening.’ You would think that if you explain it the rational mind should understand it, but you have to experience it. You have to see the commitment. The fact we have folks coming here very regularly, you see what’s happening, you see it coming to life, you see what’s possible.” “We know materials, we know sintering, we know the process. The printer is capable of printing parts at a certain density which really excites us,” Guedo finished. “If I just reflect on the last six months, there’s a long way to go, but now we are moving forward month by month and that gives me confidence that this partnership is the right partnership. There is far more to come.”

27.4 / www.tctmagazine.com / 015

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AUTOMOTIVE

WINNING THE MANUFACTURING RACE

eeting with suited and booted manufacturing leaders is standard practice for any big industry event. But for one particular meeting at the recent RAPID + TCT, there was something a little different – namely the several visitors hovering around the company’s booth hoping to catch a few moments with this approachable CEO, perhaps even an autograph or selfie. That’s because Brad Keselowski, founder of Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing (KAM), isn’t just the creator of a fast-growing hybrid manufacturing firm but also a successful fulltime NASCAR racing driver and, lucky for me, an additive manufacturing (AM) end-user too. As Keselowski puts it: “I honestly don’t see how you can do this if you’re not an end user.” Keselowski is fanatical about manufacturing and technology. This was clear during a keynote talk at this year’s Additive

WORDS: LAURA GRIFFITHS

“WHAT MIGHT BE THE BEST PART TODAY MIGHT NOT BE THE BEST PART TOMORROW. YOU HAVE TO ACT VERY QUICKLY.”

Manufacturing User Group Conference, where the CEO spoke openly about his love of AM’s fast-paced nature and the ability to have a “factory in your pocket”. That excitement manifests throughout our conversation, predominantly as Keselowski spins the perfectly engineered wheels of a miniature but incredibly detailed car model he encouraged his engineers to build, just for fun. That passion, however, is very much grounded in reality. Operating out of Statesville, North Carolina since 2018, KAM currently runs a 70,000 -square-foot facility housing metal AM, precision CNC machining, scanning, inspection technologies, post-processing and a fullservice metallurgical lab. Some of that inherent end-user confidentiality comes through when asked about what systems the facility houses, with the CEO preferring to talk about ambitions to become “fully vertical”. That said, the company is open about its partnerships with major OEMs including Mazak, tooling company BIG KAISER, and GE Additive. “Part of being vertical to us is being hybrid, the two go hand-in-hand,” Keselowski told TCT. “Even in the small amount of time I’ve been in this industry, there has been a shift where it was additive against the world to ‘okay, maybe we’re more United Nations’. I think that’s very healthy. I think it was very 4

SHOWN: BRAD KESELOWSKI INSIDE THE KAM FACILITY IN NORTH CAROLINA

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AUTOMOTIVE unhealthy to have a rhetoric that there was going to be a 3D printer in everyone’s house. I think it’s very unhealthy to come out and say a 3D printer is going to replace castings or a 3D printer is replacing CNC subtracting. That rhetoric, thankfully, has died down. I’m very interested in hybrid because I see the strengths of multiple technology disciplines and when they’re applied together we can create the most unique, the most advantageous products on the marketplace.” Days before my meeting with Keselowski, the company announced additional investments in its hardware line-up with the installation of two metal AM systems running aluminium and Inconel, CMM and tensile strength testing equipment, and a CNC precision saw for additive part removal and subtractive manufacturing. KAM has also commenced construction on a new engineering centre set for completion later this year. Racing and manufacturing run in the family. Keselowski’s earliest memory of additive comes from his father’s race shop where he spent his teen years looking after the less glamourous tasks of mopping and sweeping floors. One day an engineer brought in a clear plastic prototype for an intake manifold, a part that would typically be cast in metal with a weight of around 20 pounds. This version however was 3D printed and couldn’t have weighed more than a tenth of the original. Holding this new super lightweight part in his hand, Keselowski says he recalls pestering his father to stick the manifold onto the vehicle and race it, but the seasoned engineer quickly stepped in to point out that the part was merely a mock-up and if it were to race, would simply melt. Keselowski says he didn’t see another additive part until years later when he started racing with Team Penske, a well-known adopter of Stratasys Fortus polymer technology. Here, the team used 3D printing in wind tunnel testing to produce prototypes with fluid passageways and pressure taps. The data from the wind tunnel tests would then be applied

to create algorithms which are used to simulate and validate models of the car. But all of this was being done in plastics and Keselowski confesses he’s not a huge fan of plastic FDM, particularly when used as an alternative to carbon fibre. “Hung up on manufacturing” and inspired by a conversation on metal additive with an old friend who was leading his own successful carbon fibre business, Keselowski began exploring the technology. Lightbulbs went off. “Motorsports cycles are very fast. What might be the best part today might not be the best part tomorrow or might be illegal tomorrow,” Keselowski remarked. “So, you have to act very quickly. The challenge for us is that really leaves us one option, which is CNC subtractive. CNC subtractive is great, don’t get me wrong, we love it. It has its limitations. If we go to castings, castings are too slow. So, what I saw in additive was the ability to cut steps out of the process, specifically the ability to make effectively casting parts, in metal. I thought that was very exciting.” For motorsport, the manufacturing race is as crucial as the actual race itself. Keselowski speaks of one case where the team had created a fully engineered, fully simulated moving rear suspension for a car set to race one Sunday in Texas. When the car arrived at the track on the Saturday, a surprise weather front moved in which altered the grip level of the track and overall performance of the car. The part was a no go. Quickly, they relayed this back to the team in North Carolina who redesigned the part for the new inputs and loads, manufactured it, performed quality control testing and put the part on an aeroplane back to Texas. In just 22 hours, the team was able to get the new component onto the vehicle and ready to race by 10am the next day.

That story, and there are many like them according to Keselowski, is a prime example of what he calls the “feedback loop” which sees a constant synchronicity between engineering, manufacturing, quality control and Keselowski himself as an end-user. “The faster they go through the loop, the faster I go,” Keselowski said. “In motorsports, we are completely built to do that as fast as possible because it’s so important to our success. What I found being involved in that is that the business landscape, or what I would call the real world outside of motorsports, moves nowhere near that speed. It’s competitive, but not competitive in the same way. So, I had a very entrepreneurial hat on when I was talking to my friend at that time, I said, “what if somebody offered the same culture of speed and quality to the outside, you know, business world.” Speed alone isn’t the pinnacle of this success story and Keselowski says uniqueness and quality are the key properties he seeks when pursuing new technologies. But as KAM moves forward with its ambitious plans for the future, he says print speeds are still a challenge. “This room hates hearing it but the reality is we still need to build parts faster,” Keselowski commented. “That’s not to be the negative headline of the day but we need to get the print speeds faster without losing quality.” Speaking as someone whose entire career, whether on or off the track, has revolved around being the fastest, Keselowski adds: “I always feel like if you can show me unique capabilities and you can show me quality, I can find the speed.”

SHOWN:

KAM RACE CAR ON THE SHOW FLOOR AT RAPID + TCT

KAM TAKES A HYBRID APPROACH TO MANUFACTURING WITH A RANGE OF ADDITIVE AND SUBTRACTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

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/ www.tctmagazine.com / 019

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AUTOMOTIVE

NEWS: AUTOMOTIVE

DYEMANSION LAUNCHES NEW AUTOMOTIVE COLOURS DyeMansion has already cemented its place as one of the leaders in postprocessing polymer parts, and at this year’s RAPID + TCT launched a host of new colours aimed at two of its top sectors: automotive and lifestyle. The automotive industry has strict requirements for interior parts, taking into account factors like UV, extreme temperatures, scratch/rub resistance as well as colour consistency. The likes of Daimler have already trusted DyeMansion for the reproduction of spare parts and the post-processing outfit has built upon

that experience for the first colour in the AutomotiveX range. Dr Alena Folger, R&D Chemist at DyeMansion, commented: “Even finest textures, such as leather patterns, can be processed with our new Automotive BlackX by the usual DeepDye Coloring (DDC) process in the DM60 while retaining all details. Like any other of our colors, Automotive BlackX can be used with our contact-free colour cartridges. As black is the most important colour for automotive interiors, it was chosen to represent the new colour range of Automotive ColorsX.”

VOLKSWAGEN RETROFITS VW BUS USING GENERATIVE DESIGN

Volkswagen celebrated the 20-year anniversary of one of its largest vehicle research facilities by unveiling a vintage VW Bus retrofitted with generatively designed parts.

JABIL AND RENAULT F1 TEAM TO COLLABORATE ON 3D PRINTED RACECAR PARTS

Jabil has announced an agreement with the Renault F1 Team to 3D print parts for use in the 2019 Formula One World Championship series. The cooperation is intended to speed up the development and delivery of 3D printed racecar parts for the Renault R.S.19 by leveraging Jabil’s Additive Manufacturing Network. John Dulchinos, VP of digital manufacturing at Jabil, said: “Our ability to consolidate a global supply chain and scale qualified processes as needed will enable the production of chassis and on-car components in record time.” The Renault F1 Team is an early adopter of 3D printing technology and continually seeks to produce lightweight parts without compromising part strength or integrity. Antoine Magnan, Head of Partnerships at Renault Sport Racing, added: “Every single aspect of what we do is geared towards excellence. We look forward to taking advantage of Jabil’s growing ecosystem of certified materials, processes and machines to boost parts availability and overall productivity.”

Autodesk collaborated with VW’s Innovation and Engineering Center California (IECC) to reconceptualise several components on its electric-infused 1962 Type 2 11-window Microbus showcase vehicle. The IECC team applied generative design to the wheels, completely rethinking the structure to reduce the weight of the car and lessen rolling resistance on the tires. The new wheels are 18 percent lighter than a standard set and the overall development time was cut from 1.5 years down to months. Generative design was also used to re-imagine the steering wheel and support structure for the rear bench seating and external side mirror mounts. Andrew Morandi, senior product designer at Volkswagen Group commented: “It’s possible this could be part of a complete, fundamental change in automotive factories and how cars are manufactured.”

AURORA LABS AND GRÄNGES SIGN MOU FOCUSED ON ALUMINIUM 3D PRINTING FOR AUTOMOTIVE Australian metal 3D printing company Aurora Labs has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Swedish industrial firm Gränges AB.

The agreement details potential transactions including the purchase of Aurora’s RMP1 Rapid Manufacturing Printer and supply of Gränges’ proprietary aluminium powder. The two aim to better understand the opportunities for aluminium additive manufacturing with a key focus on automotive, an area Aurora expects to see “enormous growth” in. According to Aurora, the proposed transactions could potentially be worth up to 7.75m USD in revenue. Aurora’s Managing Director, David Budge, commented: “This is a remarkable relationship for Aurora and we are very pleased to partner with Gränges, a forward thinking and innovative company with products extensively placed across the automotive sector.” The MoU, executed through Aurora’s fully owned subsidiary A3D Operations Pty Ltd., is planned to operate for a term of up to five years. Both parties are set to commence negotiations before entering a formal agreement.

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AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN

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CASTING

POISE MEANS PRIZES WORDS: SAM DAVIES

he glacial pace at which an industry moves is often rooted in the human nature to resist change. At the top, change is risky. At the bottom, change is a chore. A few years ago, Suffolk-based foundry machine shop Brafe Engineering decided to change by integrating 3D printing into its business model. Spending a six-figure sum on material every year, the company uses Voxeljet UK in Milton Keynes like a service provider to produce cores, patterns and moulds in sand materials and PMMA to cater for its sand and investment casting customers, respectively. Through the years, the company has kept its sensible hat on. Brafe has so far decided against bringing the technology in-house for fear of technical obsolescence, instead benefitting from any new developments at the source. It didn’t flood its learning workforce with too many 3D printed moulds at once, either, instead gradually integrating the technology over time. Assurances were given straight away about how it would supplement the workforce and not replace them, and how it would enhance the company’s offering and provide an additional revenue stream. The company balanced concerns from the top to the bottom, and now? “The rate of technical development of 3D in the business has gone up tenfold in the last 12 months,” Adam Dalby, Brafe Engineering’s Business Development Manager, told TCT. “Now, people are saying this [mould] needs to be 3D printed, we can print that core rather than

making it [through traditional means]. The benefits to the customer? We’re getting mould packs designed a lot quicker.” Brafe is high mix, low volume, with its output primarily in pump and valve castings for customers in the oil and gas, pharmaceutical, and nuclear markets. When it throws 3D printing technology at these orders, it’s looking to see advancements in at least two of time, quality and price. One product to tick all

“AROUND 10-15% OF OUR REVENUE IS BEING DRIVEN WITH INTEGRATED 3D PRINTING TECHNOLOGY.” three boxes was a trim component for a control valve, which was traditionally cut from foam, pre-coated with a spray wax and then dipped into a slurry for investment casting. “That had varying degrees of success and surface finish quality,” Dalby explained, “whereas printing it can be dipped straight from Voxeljet. We managed to take some cost out, improve the speed, simplify our supply chain, and reduce the lead time. Our customers have commented on how much improved the surface finish is, and we actually [replaced

it with 3D printing] without them knowing, so them spotting it shows it’s worthwhile.” Not only is it worthwhile but, increasingly, it is expected among Brafe’s customer base that foundry machine shops are thinking differently about how to approach their order. Many of them have 3D printers in-house themselves and there are some who are even providing sand printed moulds to be cast. But Dalby warns education throughout the value and supply chain is necessary. Nobody wants to be suggesting 3D printing as an option if it’s not the right solution. The poise that served the company so well in its adoption of additive remains, and to little surprise, the change is paying off. 3D printing’s importance within Brafe Engineering is growing at an impressive rate. “We’ve probably got somewhere around 10-15% of our revenue now being driven with integrated 3D printing technology whether that be a full part set-up or just a core, and I can only see that going one way,” Dalby assessed. “Two years ago, we were single digit percentage, probably 1 or 2%, and we’ve captured new customers where 3D is just what we’re offering them. We don’t want to continue to hold pattern equipment if we don’t have to, and it simplifies the whole of the manufacturing process if we can use 3D printing. Obviously, we’re not against tooling. We’ve got a skilled pattern shop here with three exceptional pattern makers that produce patterns to probably the highest standard I’ve ever seen. But, at the same time, it’s all a balance.”

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SAND 3D PRINTING: TH DOS AND THE DON’TS WORDS: SAM DAVIES

oosier Pattern Inc. was founded in 1997, has grown to house a workforce of around 50 people and nearly 30 production machines, and prides itself on delivering cores and moulds on time and at the desired quality of its customers. In 2013, the company became the first pattern making shop in the Americas to own and operate a 3D sand printer in-house. A year later, one of its customers purchased its own printing platform and leant on Hoosier to operate it out of its Decatur, IN facility. And since July 2018, Hoosier has been running a third sand printer – all ExOne S Max machines – and an FDM system for prototyping and low volume run patterns. The company is a champion of additive manufacturing (AM) technology, putting its fleet of machines into action day in day out, week in week out, successfully shipping sand printed cores and moulds from Indiana, throughout the state, country and continent, and as far as Brazil, the UK, India and China. Having sampled an AMUG Conference 2019 presentation delivered by Dave Rittmeyer, a selfconfessed journeyman pattern maker who currently occupies the role of Customer Care and Additive Manufacturing Manager at Hoosier Pattern, TCT sought to glean insights from a company with more than half a decade’s experience of running a 3D sand printer. Through both discussions, Rittmeyer put the emphasis on regular maintenance of machinery, gave pointers on how to approach design, and bemoaned the all too frequent carelessness of freight companies. Amidst it all, he advises what to do and what not to do should you operating a 3D sand printer.

SHOWN: 3D PRINTED SAND CASTING PRODUCED BY HOOSIER PATTERN WITH EXONE SMAX PLATFORM

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DO: ‘A CLEAN MACHINE IS A HAPPY MACHINE’

Hoosier has created a cleaning schedule to make sure the insides of the mixing chambers, the bottom and inside of the recoater and the outside of the printhead are all scrubbed on a daily basis. A full wash out is a weekly occurrence, where pieces of the recoater are pulled out and soaked in a chemical solution. The windows and exterior of the machine are also wiped down regularly. “Keep everything clean. That way no sand or binder gets built up anywhere where it shouldn’t. If it does, it could potentially cause a failure on a job box we’re running.”

DON’T: DESIGN TOO MANY BLIND AREAS When designing cores and moulds, Rittmeyer recommends not implementing too many areas that you will struggle to see when the print is finished. “Too many of those increase your risk of a bad casting, so design it so it can be seen and cleaned. Try to avoid very thin sharp edges. You’re better off with obtuse angles if possible, rather than an acute angle.”

DO: DESIGN SO YOU CAN HANDLE

With the ability to print the size of the build volume – in the case of an ExOne S Max, that’s 1800 x 1000 x 700 mm – there’s potential for the printing of large cores and moulds. But they’re typically not the easiest, or safest, things to handle. Rittmeyer suggests incorporating rods into the design – all the way through the print if possible – and perhaps even inserting steel plates to evenly disperse the weight.

CASTING

HE S DO: TEST EVERYTHING

DO: CONTROL THE ENVIRONMENT

Hoosier has installed technology to enable the air conditioning and furnaces to work together with a mister system to ensure the room in which the printers are kept is neither too dry nor too humid. “If it becomes too humid in the room, the sand may not flow out of the recoater properly, which means it won’t have anywhere for the binder to spray onto and bond together, so it’ll have trenching or just stop laying sand altogether. And vice versa, if it becomes too dry, the sand may start to free flow out of the recoater.”

Hoosier tests every print in every job box. Each print is weighed. Each is measured to get the length, width and height. A scratch test is carried out. A permeability puck will be produced to gauge printability in the first instance. Loss on ignition tests will be run.

DO: GIVE EVERY JOB BOX A SERIAL NUMBER DON’T: BE IN A HUGE RUSH WHEN YOU’RE EXTRACTING YOUR MOULD Take your time and be careful. Remove as much unbonded sand as you can to make it lighter and easier to handle. And if you’re vacuuming holes out it can create a vortex in a wind tunnel and could erode itself very quickly.

DON’T: EXPECT YOUR COURIER TO GIVE DUE CARE TO YOUR SHIPMENT Packaging properly is paramount in order to not undo all the work it has taken to design, print, and extract your moulds or cores. Rittmeyer and his team have learnt the hard way that freight companies are not always too gentle when handling the wooden crates that Hoosier Pattern’s sand prints are shipped in. Deliveries have all too often turned up on doorsteps as nothing more than mounds of sand because of insufficient packaging, poor handling, bumpy roads or combinations of the three. “Everything is packed with foam around it. Foam is pretty much the only thing that will touch, whether it’s a sand core or a mould. If it’s a very fragile core, or if we’re worried about shipment, what we’ll do is we’ll actually print a box as we’re printing the core around the outside of it and we’ll ship it right inside that box, and again it’s packaged with foam. We’ll do that for very fragile impeller cores that have a very thin discharge or for water jacket cores for car motors, for example.”

Applying serial numbers to each print run will help you keep order of them for quality control. “Every item in that box will have that number on it so if there is a quality issue, I can locate and isolate them for quality control. If somebody ordered 500 cores over multiple printers, this way I know which cores were printed when. That’s something that absolutely needs to be done.”

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Racing ahead with additive manufacturing AM has the power to disrupt, enabling innovative product designs and new agile business models Atherton Bikes is taking advantage of these capabilities to break free from the rigid, labour-intensive conventional bike manufacturing mould. AM gives Atherton Bikes the flexibility to hone their race bike designs, and to make high performance custom bikes accessible to enthusiasts.

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12/07/2019 09:30:37

ENTERTAINMENT

3D PRINTING’S BREAKOUT SEASON C WORDS: SAM DAVIES

leats meet the crisp green turf, helmet travels from under the arm to over the head, backsides reconvene with the freshly painted seats or forgotten sofas, and the whistle blows. At once, it marks an end and a beginning. For players, coaches, fans alike, the slowest part of the year comes to an end, and the most turbulent commences. The post-season break and the preseason warm-up lasted only a few months, but to them it felt like years. Of course, that cast of people aren’t the only ones who make the spectacle what it is. In any elite-level sport, there’s the broadcasters and pundits dissecting the action and creating the narratives, the governing bodies implementing the rules, and the equipment manufacturers doing their utmost to protect the players. Recently, this trio have found themselves in the midst of one of American Football’s biggest subplots: the debate around concussion. The rate of this impact injury to the head tends to fluctuate season by season (it dropped by 29% in the 2018/19 campaign, for instance), but since the average NFL playing career lasts six years, there’s more than enough exposure to the possibility. A 2017 study found that chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurogenerative disease caused by repeated blows to the head, was present in 177 of 202 deceased former football players, and within that 110 of 111 former NFL players. It is a serious issue that the media has been right to spotlight, and the NFL and equipment manufacturers have been right to respond to. The game’s tackling policy is in a seemingly never-ending

evolution, and you’d only have to see a chronological slideshow of images to gauge how much the performance of football helmets has transformed since they became mandatory in 1943. Riddell has been at the vanguard of the advancement in football helmets since the beginning, from basic leather shells to polycarbonate modernisations with full face visors to where we are with the company’s latest product iteration: The Precision Diamond in partnership with Carbon. “The foundation for how we approach things is using the latest research and science that’s available into head injuries to design products that reduce the risk and reduce overall head impact exposure to players,” Thad Ide, Riddell’s Senior Vice President of Research and Development, told TCT. “The head impact database that we’ve been collecting with our instrumented helmets for the last 15 years is very valuable in illuminating the different types of head impact profiles that different players in different playing positions, different ages, different skill levels [can experience], and that will affect how helmets are designed and developed in the future. Our precision fit helmet is a first step along those lines.” It started in Chicago where Riddell, with 70% of the football helmet market share, is headquartered. Three years ago, the company introduced a limited roll-out of its precision fit helmet, in which Riddell conducted 3D scans of the players’ heads in order to design and produce helmets that fit perfectly to their head shape – nobody else can wear it comfortably. The helmets are fitted with sensors, recording every impact it takes, passing information to the medical staff on the side-line in real-time, and 4 storing much more

4 SHOWN:

RIDDELL’S PRECISION DIAMOND HELMET

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ENTERTAINMENT the shell. Riddell and Carbon can go from scan to delivery of the helmet in less than a day. At the beginning of this project, they went from files to field, with thousands of cloud-based iterations developed, in just six months, and by November 2018, at least one player at each of the 32 NFL teams was wearing a customised Precision Diamond helmet with printed liners. The partners publicly launched the product at Superbowl LIII three months later and have been taking orders through the summer. Going forward, the helmet is to be made available to college footballers, and the customised material that Carbon has developed for this project will be commercialised too.

SHOWN: 4

LATTICE PRECISION DIAMOND LINER PAD PRINTED WITH CARBON’S DIGITAL LIGHT SYNTHESIS TECHNOLOGY

for download to allow coaches to review periodically and advise players on how best to avoid high-risk, in-game situations. Harnessing this kind of feedback has enabled Riddell to gain territory in its pursuit of greater protection for the wearers of its helmets, but it was concurrent developments on the West Coast that paved the way for the next few strides forward. Carbon approached Riddell off the back of its work with Adidas, additively manufacturing the midsoles of the Futurecraft 4D trainers, believing it could attribute its know-how around achieving the desired responses in certain areas of a latticed component to Riddell’s helmet liners. “The two programmes are a little different because for Adidas you’re looking for energy return, and in this case, you’re looking for energy damping,” explained Erika Berg, Carbon’s Head of Application Development. “For that, we use different materials, from the same family, the EPU, but slightly differently tuned for different results.” Sample parts in this customised elastomer were put through compression tests, tensile tests, and impact tests by Riddell and, with some tweaks in the lattice structure, were judged to outperform its current foam. It’s the structuring of the lattices that really sets the liners apart from the originals. There are seven liner pads in total – down from 20 by the way – and within each, the lattice is fine-tuned to provide tough areas to provide a stiff response and soft areas to dissipate rotational forces, acceleration,

and velocity. Together, the seven pads comprise around 140,000 struts. The subtleties of their design dictate the performance. “They can vary in thickness, in length, and then the shape, and the cell size of that shape,” Berg said. “Those are some of the parameters that we use to fine tune the response that you get. We can also change the direction of the lattice, so that could help with things like printability, but also response. If we know that there is one location that is receiving a direct response, we want to make sure to attenuate that impact in a compression stance, but other areas we know have significant relationships with rotational forces and so we may change the direction of the lattice to make sure that we get more of a sheer result from that. We’re [also] trying to consider different areas that may improve rotational forces by improving the softness or changing the cell type in the way that the sheer stresses affect everything.” The seven pads are produced on Carbon’s L1 Digital Light Synthesis platform, all in a single build. They are then passed through a quality control process, testing locations throughout each pad to ensure the response and performance is right. Then, they’re placed, attached with Velcro, into

3 LEFT:

ALL SEVEN LINER PADS INTEGRATED INTO THE PRECISION DIAMOND HELMET

SHOWN: CARBON L1

Riddell’s latest headwear product iteration comes amidst intense discussion around the side-effects of one of the world’s most lucrative sports. The driving factor was to ‘provide a superior product, the best protection to players’, per Berg, while Riddell has been ‘laser focused on head protection for years, decades even,’ and has sought to take advantage of the pace of technological innovation to address growing concerns for player safety. As the players cross the white line and enter the fray, with thousands in the immediate vicinity and millions watching at home, the Precision Diamond helmet is among the 2019/20 season’s emerging stars. It’s waited patiently these last few months, had its fit tested and performance scrutinised, and is now set to have its impact. For some, it felt like years. “You’ve got a whole design team and engineering team that has been waiting to be able to design and manufacture a 3D printed helmet for quite some time, for more than a decade,” said Vittori Bologna, Research & Development Manager at Riddell. “Now, the technology has caught up to where our visions were.”

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ADDITIVE GOES TO THE BALL WORDS: Laura Griffiths

hether it’s Levis’ ‘engineered’ jeans of 1999 or smart wearables, manufacturing technology and fashion have always found ways of coming together.

Though not quite as ubiquitous as a smart watch, it’s now not uncommon to find elements of 3D printing woven into the fashion world, from the famous Dita Gown that started it all to Chanel’s 3D printed suits and optimised mascara brushes. At the annual Met Gala, where the dress code and exclusive guest list invite the most extravagant outfits to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the technology enabled some of the most talked about looks at this year’s event. The theme was ‘Camp: Notes On Fashion’ and U.S. designer Zac Posen leveraged 3D printing to create a number of garments and accessories inspired by the concept of freezing natural objects in motion. The pieces were developed over a six-month period in collaboration with GE Additive and Protolabs, expanding on Posen’s vision of incorporating cutting-edge technology with sophisticated style to produce pieces that were “unachievable using fabric,” according to Posen. The designer commented: “For me, science, engineering and art all work together. That’s why standing at the forefront of 3D printing is so important.” The collaboration began right after last year’s Gala, where Posen met with GE’s chief marketing officer, Linda Boff, who introduced the designer to the GE AddWorks team. Having previously experimented with fibre optic technology in another Gala design and following a visit to GE’s Customer Experience Center in Pittsburgh, the two began exploring how additive manufacturing (AM) could be applied to the fashion industry. What followed was a rapid iteration process combining traditional mood boards, sketches and draped mannequins with new digital models (not forgetting the less cutting-edge wire-frame mock ups constructed from pipe cleaners) and many hours racked up on FaceTime. “From the beginning the AddWorks team had to provide some education on additive manufacturing and its capabilities today,” Stephanie DePalma, AddWorks Lead Engineer at GE Additive, told TCT. “One of the most rewarding parts of this collaboration was working with a fashion designer who clearly has a passion for technology and helping him live out his dream of intersecting technology with fashion, while in turn our team was able to live out beauty in a completely different way.”

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ENTERTAINMENT INSPEX

The main pieces - four gowns, a headdress and a number of structural elements - were worn by A-lister guests Jourdan Dunn, Nina Dobrev, Katie Holmes, Julia Garner and Deepika Padukone, and took over 1,500 hours to manufacture using a range of AM processes. The show stopper piece was a custom rose gown featuring 21 unique 20-inch plastic petals printed with stereolithography (SLA) to deliver a high surface resolution. You may think the bodywork looks similar to that of a new sports car, and you wouldn’t be far off. Each piece was finished with primer and a layer of colour shifting “Twilight Fire” automotive paint from DuPont to give it a glossy sheen. The petals, each weighing 1 lb. and valued at 3,000 USD, were attached to a titanium cage printed on a GE Additive Arcam EBM machine to support the weight and movement of the gown while adding minimal weight. The garment took over 1,100 hours to complete. Though the piece, the most ambitious of the collection, wasn’t without it’s challenges. Due to printing and finishing schedules, the first fitting took place just one week before the Gala, leaving the team with very little time to make changes to the design. This was put to the test when Posen suggested the gown, which was originally intended to be a floor length piece, would work better with a knee length cut. Having pre-built some modularity into the design for adjustments, the team was able to completely deconstruct the gown and

5 ABOVE:

MODEL OF PALM LEAF COLLAR

3 LEFT:

CLEAR BUSTIER PRINTED WITH SLA TO GIVE A WATER-LIKE APPEARANCE

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THE LEADER IN AUTOMATION ...

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ENTERTAINMENT INSPEX rearrange the petal placement in a much shorter configuration, almost like a 3D jigsaw puzzle.

SHOWN:

EMBROIDERY IS ATTACHED TO METALLIC-LOOK BALL GOWN

Commenting on turning the design around in such a short time frame, DePalma added: “We did have to use a Dremel to cut parts of the understructure away that would have been visible the day before the Met Gala, but ultimately Zac and his team were very pleased with the short design configuration.” Another highlight was a clear 3D printed bustier worn by actress Dobrev, printed in four pieces and finished by wet sanding and sprayed to give a water-like glass appearance. The static nature of the garment meant there was very little margin for error, so the team used photogrammetry to make a 3D model of Dobrev to ensure the bustier would be a perfect fit. “When creating the vision of this piece with Zac, he draped fabric on a mannequin in the way he wanted the dress the flow,” Sarah Watson, Design Engineer at GE Additive, explained. “We used photogrammetry and blue light scanning to capture some of the complex folds in the fabric and free hand to replicate as much movement in the gown as possible. Zac quickly learned that we were able offer more design complexity than he could traditionally make with folds in a fabric, which allowed him to add even more detail to capture his ideas of movement against the body.” Actresses Holmes and Garner each wore exaggerated accessories including a palm leaf collar attached to a custom gown produced with SLA and finished in pearlescent purple paint, and a vine headpiece with berry embellishments, printed in nylon in a single piece using HP Multi Jet Fusion and finished with brass plating. Unlike the bustier, the team didn’t have a lot of measurement information to go off to create the collar so opted to print a number of variants and test how they would lay on different body types. The leaves themselves, each long, flowing structures growing from the collar, also posed a significant challenge. “We used a handheld laser scanner to create a 3D replica, which we then were able to move and manipulate in 3D space to create the flowing movement of the leaves,” Watson added. “To do this though, there was significant time spent cleaning up the 3D model and light-weighting to make a manageable file to use.” The technology was also used to produce 408 intricate embroidery pieces for a metallic

SHOWN:

BUSTIER TOOK OVER 200 HOURS TO PRINT AT PROTOLABS’ FACILITY IN GERMANY

pink gown worn by Bollywood star Padukone. The embroidery was printed in plastic, vacuum metalised, and painted. Posen also created a number of printed accessories including brooches and cufflinks, some of which were on display at the recent RAPID + TCT event. The majority of the garments were manufactured at Protolabs’ AM facilities in the U.S. and Germany, while the titanium cage for the rose gown was printed at the GE Additive Technology Center in Cincinnati. In addition to the 3D printing techniques on-hand, Posen’s team was particularly interested in the range of postprocessing options available via Protolabs including colourchanging paint and metal plating which gave each piece its luxurious finished quality. Plastic parts look like metal, while even the most acute additive eye would likely not be able to distinguish which technology was used where. Speaking about the project, Daniel Cohn, General Manager of Protolabs, commented in a press release: “Designers are no longer limited by traditional manufacturing processes, where a project would be curtailed by questions like ‘can a part be cut to this shape’ or ‘can it suspend itself under its own weight’. What we have here is a very pure design process, from concept to physical part.” The project is the perfect example of what happens when engineering knowledge and creativity come together. Posen joins a growing list of leaders in wearables and fashion who continue to play with emerging technologies, whether it’s Adidas using Carbon’s technology to print midsoles, or Dolce & Gabanna sending handbag-carrying drones

SHOWN:

ROSE GOWN FEATURES 21 UNIQUE 3D PRINTED PETALS

down the runway at Milan Fashion Week. While technology may be the enabler in each of these examples, the project is further proof that collaboration is the way forward in leveraging the most successful outcomes from both fields. DePalma added: “While Zac isn’t the first to use 3D printing in fashion, he waited for the right partner to come along that could help him incorporate the technology into his gowns in an elegant and authentic way with a different and more luxurious feel than previous additive fashions.”

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entertainment

3D PRINTING F LM FOOTAGE I

WORDS: DANIEL O’CONNOR

director or cinematographer point of view, looking at camera and film language to design the print.”

n a world where “complexity is free”, form is usually the main characteristic of an additively manufactured part. Those in the industry have almost become numb to organic-looking generatively designed structures, so much so that the idea of seeing the perfunctory square shape that adorns this page, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it is not 3D printed at all. Yet, this project is only possible because of 3D printing technology and its mostly untapped promise of voxel printing. HP’s launch of Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) in 2014 promised “voxel-level” control and Stratasys’ GrabCAD Voxel Print software solution launched in 2017 was to give us molecular level control and design of material properties. However, save for some experiments by Harvard, MIT and projects in metal by Lin Kayser’s Hyperganic software, we’re yet to see any useable, in-production use cases for voxel printing using polymer technologies like MJF and PolyJet.

At a recent conference, John Barnes suggested that the global sum-total of engineers who genuinely understand designfor-additive methods was in the region of 1,000. A smart wager would be that the number of those that understand voxel-level printing is less than 10% of that.

That’s not to say that the research is not happening, and Joseph Coddington of the Victoria University of Wellington has dedicated a portion of his studies to understanding the benefits of voxel-based printing for the benefits of bringing a digital film into the physical world. Instead of using a CAD software, which is notoriously tricky to not only implement voxel-level control in the design but the exported file (the 3MF file format is trying to change this but yet to have taken off), Joseph used film footage, photoshop, and a Stratasys J750. The result is a preservation of 32 seconds of film footage in 659 layers. “Usually, when designing a 3D print, the focus is on forms and materials,” explains Joseph. “Most prints use STL files, which exclusively focus on the surface quality, and don’t consider the internal build of the print. For this project, the mindset was taken from a

Joseph took a 32-second video of himself having a portrait photo taken, slowly zooming in to show the range of movement. A secondary character comes into and out of the scene while zooming, which can be visualised on the physical print (like old film) before being projected. The scene ends with Joseph’s entire face in the camera in an attempt to create contrast from the start of the scene, which contained more of the plain background. The scene was then converted to black and white before adding a third colour (magenta) to represent movement. Using Photoshop, the scene exported every 30th frame out of the 32 seconds of footage into a PNG file. The resulting PNG files are then stacked like slices of a 3D print with the pixels converting to plotting points for the J750 to place colour in the appropriate place. The resulting print is a small rectangular physical representation of digital film footage, which Joseph is looking to commercialise by way of keepsakes. However, he believes his research could have a broader impact: “Voxel printing will offer a tremendous range of opportunity for multiple disciplines. The ability to code and now print what is inside a material is so significant I believe it is just a matter of time before the world switches on to the potential applications.”

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GRAPHIC SHOWING HOW DIFFERENT FRAMES CAN BE STACKED TO BE PRINTED INTO THE CUBE-LIKE DESIGN

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Research and Academia

FUTURE OF AM IN THE WORDS: Laura Griffiths

LAURA HIGHLIGHTS SOME OF THE KEY ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING RESEARCH EFFORTS HAPPENING IN UK UNIVERSITIES.

t this year’s Additive International conference in Nottingham, delegates were invited to attend a pre-conference session exploring the latest research and development activities happening around additive manufacturing here in the UK. As per the event’s location, much of that activity is happening in universities such as the University of Nottingham, where we were able to get a closer look at the institute’s well-stocked Centre for Additive Manufacturing and nanofabrication and metal jetting developments. Key takeaway? There is a LOT of time and money being invested into the UK’s additive future. Plug and play material development Throughout the event, materials continued to be referred to as a major bottleneck in AM progression. Currently, it can take up to six months to formulate a new material but as part of a 3.5 million GBP four-year programme, researchers in Nottingham are aiming to develop a “plug and play” platform that will enable rapid identification of materials for AM. The university has already applied a high throughput method for material identification for biomaterials and now intends to adapt

that methodology to develop formulations, particularly around inkjet and hot metal extrusion, that can be used for a number of verticals. The goal is to have a library of materials for 3D printing that will be readily available as a tool for UK industry. Wire arc additive manufacturing Stewart Williams at Cranfield University spoke about the strides the university is making in wire-based AM. Far from being simply “nice processes to put on the end of robots” as Williams described, there is a lot more to be explored with this technology that many view as simply an off-the-shelf robotic arm with a welder attached to it. A programme from the EPSRC has been set up to amplify this process. Led by Cranfield University, New Wire Additive Manufacture – or NEWAM – is a collaborative effort with the universities of Manchester, Strathclyde and Coventry, targeting high build rates for net shape parts at low cost. This includes the design of new materials, delivery of homogenous microstructures and properties, and the guarantee of full structural integrity. A common challenges with this type of technology is that much of its make-up is based on standard components, including software, so the collaborators have developed their own specifically for the WAM process as opposed to adapting pre-existing subtractive programmes. Ultimately, the technology could potentially be used by industrial project partners like BAE Systems to produce end-use parts.

Multi-materials and functionality Another programme from the EPSRC is looking at next generation multi-functional AM. What exactly is that, you ask? Well currently, a lot of additive comes down to just components. Multi-material is a reality in some respects but in order to get to real functionality, more focus on combining complex materials and inherent functionality is key. Richard Hague at the University Nottingham commented on the “massive material challenges in all additive manufacturing” which forms the basis of a multi-institution team which is aiming to go beyond single material manufacturing with the deposition of heterogeneous materials during the same build. The 5 million GBP project centres on 3D printed pharmaceutical devices and electronics using drop-ondemand print techniques and the goal is to establish this multi-material AM process for application in further research and industry. The technology is being actively explored by Nesma Aboulkhair at the Nottingham Centre for AM through a unique 3D printing platform based on Océ MetalJet technology which enables precision jetting of molten droplets of conductive materials with a melting point up to 2,000°C.

SHOWN: EXAMPLE OF METALJET PART FROM UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM CENTRE FOR ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

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Research and Academia

WHAT IS COMPUTED AXIAL LITHOGRAPHY? WORDS: LAURA GRIFFITHS

team of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have developed a 3D printing process that can produce solid 3D objects in a matter of minutes.

SHOWN: CAL’S “SIMPLE” APPARATUS (IMAGE CREDIT: HOSSEIN HEIDARI - UC BERKELEY)

The new Computed Axial Lithography process – or CAL, as it’s fittingly known, originating from a California university – is a light-based process which takes a volumetric approach to printing, meaning, instead of building objects layer-by-layer or dot-by-dot, building happens all at once. The technology works by shining changing patterns of light (likened to a mini movie) created via a computer algorithm, through a rotating vial of highly viscous liquid which solidifies to form an object. The results are said to enable parts that are smoother, more flexible and more complex than those produced with conventional 3D printing techniques. There are a number of approaches to volumetric printing, including holographic and orthogonal using a trio of light patterns, but the team opted for a tomographic approach which adds the key element of rotation. This technique eliminates the inherent step lines present with traditional layer-based printing processes and allows parts to be built suspended in resin, without the need for supports. “Computed Axial Lithography represents the first reported use of tomographic principles to fabricate 3D objects in a single process step,” Hayden Taylor, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley told TCT. “Relative rotation between a container of light-sensitive material and a projected

SHOWN: RODIN’S “THE THINKER” 3D PRINTED USING CAL. (IMAGE CREDIT: STEPHEN MCNALLY - UC BERKELEY)

allowing any uncured resin to be regenerated by heating in an oxygen atmosphere. Researchers have also experimented with printing opaque objects using shortpass dyes which transmit light at the curing wavelength.

pattern of light is what enables complex objects to be defined without the need of discrete layers. The fact that there is minimal relative motion between the object being printed and the surrounding light-sensitive material during printing allows support-free printing into a wide range of materials.” The apparatus itself is surprisingly simple. In short, the printer uses an offthe-shelf video projector, plugged into a laptop, to cast a series of computed images onto a cylinder of 3D printable resin powered by a motor. Further explaining the intricacies of the technology at the time of launch, Taylor said: “Obviously there are a lot of subtleties to it — how you formulate the resin, and, above all, how you compute the images that are going to be projected, but the barrier to creating a very simple version of this tool is not that high.” The material is composed of liquid polymers mixed with photosensitive molecules and dissolved oxygen. Light activates the photosensitive compound which depletes the oxygen to form “cross-links” that transform the resin into a solid. One of the major challenges here was formulating a material that remains a liquid when exposed to some light but solidifies when exposed to a certain threshold. Furthermore, Taylor describes CAL as essentially a “zero-waste” process

So far, CAL has been used to print small objects up to four inches in diameter, including a tiny model of Rodin’s “The Thinker”. The largest part produced to date is a customised jawbone. The process can also be used for “overprinting”, allowing users to print onto an existing part which the team have demonstrated by printing a polymer handle onto a metal screwdriver shaft. A number of application areas have been proposed, including customised optical components, prosthetics and even running shoes. The ability to print soft, fragile structures could also potentially be applied to printing tissue scaffolds. The research was formally published in Science journal at the beginning of this year and the team are now exploring how to expand its capabilities, first looking at extending the technology to produce larger components with finer features and internal channels. However, the researchers are setting their ambitions even further, with Hayden suggesting that the dream is to eventually apply this technique to metallic materials.

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he TCT Group’s flagship event, TCT Show, returns for its 24th year on September 24-26th at NEC Birmingham, promising the very best in design-tomanufacturing innovation. Taking place across Halls 3 and 3A, TCT Show brings together dozens of inspirational speakers, exhibiting companies and more than 10,000 visitors from over 60 countries. This year will be no exception as we launch the new user-led TCT Summit and networking features that will enable visitors to participate in more opportunities than ever before. With around 250 exhibitors on the show floor, it’s a good idea to have a plan of action to ensure you make the most out of your time at the show. Over the next four pages, we take you on a journey of the designto-manufacturing value chain to get a glimpse of what you can expect to see this September.

WORKFLOW

DESIGN SOFTWARE AND OPTIMISATION

So, you’ve got your idea, now you need to start designing and whether that means getting to grips with CAD tools, topology optimisation or generative design, the TCT Show floor has got you covered. Making its TCT Show debut, nTopology (stand E53) has a radical new approach to product development—computational modelling—that bridges the gap between advanced manufacturing machines and engineering software needed to optimise designs and drive production. Stop by for a demo or to see examples of digital designs and additively-manufactured products created using the software (without STL files). Once you’ve got your design, you’re probably going to want to simulate it. ANSYS (E76), the engineering simulation company which celebrates its 50th anniversary next year, will be at TCT Show showing how its latest software updates are condensing the software workflow and enabling new additive capabilities. MSC Software (B106) will also be on-hand to show how engineers can validate and optimise their designs using virtual prototypes. Taking this a step further, Siemens (D86) will be on the show floor demonstrating how digital twin technology is enabling manufacturers to simulate not only their products but entire production lines.

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Belgian 3D printing company Materialise (D84) will take visitors through its Streamics 8 AM workflow management software, which helps users to plan, schedule, control and monitor their AM operations as a standalone MES or plugged into existing ones for standard manufacturing. The software facilitates digital transformations within companies between AM designers/customers and AM production departments, increasing transparency and traceability of operations. 3YOURMIND (B60) will also be exhibiting its workflow software solutions, which enable users to manage and optimise end-to-end workflows. Visitors will be able to learn about 3YOURMIND’s AM Part Identifier tool, which analyses technical and economic data to help users decide which parts are a good fit for additive.

TCT SHOW

SHOW

MATERIALS

The Additive Manufacturing UK Strategy report pinpointed materials as a major bottleneck for AM innovation. Thankfully, a number of industry collaborations between materials companies and OEMs have emerged over the last few years which aim to answer the call for greater materials development. One of those players is Ultimaker (C90). The desktop 3D printing leader has formed alliances with leading manufacturers such as DSM, BASF, and DuPont Transportation & Advanced Polymers to allow professionals to make use of high quality materials, including industrialgrade composites and plastics that help unlock new applications. Another example is Materialise, which has expanded its 3D printing services portfolio with HP’s new certified thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU 90A), ULTRASINT, developed by BASF. Used with HP’s new Jet Fusion 5200 Series printers, the material combines smooth surfaces, fine details and excellent mechanical properties ideal for flexible and elastic parts. Over in metals, OxMet (F62) will be introducing its range of high-performance nickel, titanium and aluminium alloys for AM. The

PROTOTYPING AND DESKTOP MANUFACTURING company has carried out primary research to understand the physics behind typical failure mechanisms and applied its advanced alloys-by-design platform to develop a series of entirely new alloys using largescale computational calculations to search compositional ranges and find optimal solutions. If you’re after something a little more niche, Cooksongold AM (E82) will be demonstrating its expertise in all areas of precious metal AM. Focusing on the success of its Jewellery Bureau Service, the Birmingham-based company will be demonstrating in-house advanced precious metal powder manufacturing capabilities and new applications within a number of different industries.

Now you need to translate your design from digital to physical product to prove it works or demonstrate to your customers. TCT Show will provide the UK AM industry with the first opportunity to see Stratasys (C50) new F120 3D printer. A large-scale desktop machine, the F120 is aimed at designers, engineers and educators and said to be up to 3 x faster than competitive solutions. The company will also showcase how 3D printing is making an impact within the aircraft interiors market with a life-size business class pod on-stand. Committed to integrating 3D printing into business and manufacturing industry workflows, 3DGBIRE (F77) will be there as the exclusive UK distributor to desktop brands such as Ultimaker, Kodak, Raise 3D, JCR 3D and Photocentric, while RAM Peripherals (G84) will be showcasing the CraftBot 3 dual extruder printer and dddrop EVO Twin system. Also new this year, desktop 3D printing leader MakerBot (E100) will demonstrate how it is bridging the gap between desktop and industrial to introduce a new chapter in additive manufacturing, ‘Performance 3D Printing’, with a live demo of the new METHOD machine, PETG material, and yet to be announced innovations.

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Following the launch of its new Low Force Sterolithography technology in April, Formlabs (C100) will return to TCT Show to showcase its latest Form 3 and larger Form 3L systems and Draft material capabilities. Further across the hall, industry leader 3D Systems (A80) will showcase its extensive range of AM technologies from desktop SLA to largescale metal printing alongside its 3D Systems On Demand (B84) business.

MANUFACTURING

Now that you’ve prototyped your part, you’re ready to move on to manufacturing. Whether that means printing moulds for casting, manufacturing aids or end-use metal components, all manner of AM expertise you could ever need is right here. RPS (D40) will be showcasing the NEO800 stereolithography system and offering demonstrations of the NEO800 Titanium software and NEO Material Development Kit. On display will be a range of 3D printed parts, including 3D printed moulds and parts utilised by the Oxford Brookes Racing Formula Student Team 2019. Visitors will also be able to see the latest Perfactory P4K model DLP printers from EnvisionTEC (E92) which utilise a true 4M pixel projector together with artificial intelligence to deliver high accuracy and surface finish. Plus, attendees will be able to get a closer look at the new Envision One printer that uses EnvisonTEC’s patented domeless cDLM technology. SYS Systems (C40) is teaming up with bespoke metrology specialist Torus Group at this year’s show for a live demo of a Stratasys Objet260 Connex3 3D printed filling assembly for its top load and volume gauge machine. The part features complex channels, inserts and electrodes that allow water to flow in and out during bottle volume and crush resistance testing. Also on the stand, visitors will be able to see the Stratasys Fortus range and Nylon 12 Carbon Fibre printing capabilities.

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In addition, EOS (C76) will be presenting industrial AM solutions including the EOS M 300-4 metal system and customised variants, polymer EOS P 500 system and LaserProFusion technology, a revolutionary development in polymer AM using one million diode lasers to build parts up to 10 times faster. For those looking to explore even more metals, major players such as SLM Solutions (E72), Additive Industries (E115) and Renishaw (D100) will be on-hand to deliver expert knowledge alongside newcomers such as Xact Metal (D80), which will be exhibiting its low-cost solutions for entry-level metal printing.

POST-PROCESSING

The industry’s “dirty little secret” will be laid out for all to see along with a number of intelligent solutions designed to tackle one of AM’s biggest pain points: post-processing. Quill Vogue (E90) will launch a new affordable, colouring system for polymer parts manufactured with a wide range of technologies. The Quill Vogue colouring system utilises the company’s proven hot soak box with the addition of a dye to produce colour fast parts with no excess thickness or defects. Furthermore, Polish 3D printing company, Zortrax (E79) will be bringing its desktop Apoller smart vapour smoothing device designed for finishing parts printed in ABA, ASA and HIPS using extrusion-based technologies German post-processing solutions company, Solukon (B64) will demonstrate its automatic units for laser-melted metal parts. Leveraged by industry leaders such as Siemens, Solukon systems are engineered to provide a robust, processdriven method of handling powder removal and retrieval for convenient and economical post-processing operations. Additionally, Rösler UK (A70) will be on the showfloor with its comprehensive range of AM Solutions systems for postprocessing and surface finishing of AM and 3D printed components including removal of residual power and support structures, refining surfaces and surface polishing. AM Solutions systems are also capable of integration into an IoT based AM manufacturing environment.

TCT SHOW

MEASUREMENT AND INSPECTION

BUSINESS

Once you have your finished part, the next step is to make sure it’s up to spec. Manchester Metrology (B71) will be there with a number of measurement solutions including the HandyScan 700 handheld scanner, Cybergage 360 non-contact scanner, and FARO GAGE measuring arm for smaller parts.

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In addition to a host of 3D printing technologies from the likes of HP and Mimaki, UK 3D solutions provider Europac3D (A90) will have one of the largest stands on the show floor featuring end-to-end solutions including Kreon 3D measuring arms and high-resolution scanning technology from Artec.

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ANALYSIS

Visitors to the Freeman Technology (E70) stand can see a demonstration of the FT4 Powder Rheometer, a universal powder flow tester which provides automated, reliable and comprehensive measurements of bulk material characteristics. Offering particle size and characterisation instrumentation and laboratory services, UKbased Meritics (A63) will be showcasing two technologies, the Beckman Coulter LS13320XR Particle Size Analyser which promises bestin-class particle size distribution data from advanced PIDS technology, and the Mercury Scientific Revolution Powderflow Analyser for measuring powder’s ability to flow, consolidate, granulate, cake and pack. Furthermore, MKS (A71) will present the Ophir BeamWatch AM Real Time Laser Beam Analyser, a lightweight, compact system designed for real-time measurement of focal shift during laser startup of powder bed fusion manufacturing processes. Measurements allow users to more easily determine when the beam is aligned and in focus, providing more consistent metallurgy.

SERVICES

The UK’s leading 3D printing service providers will be in force on the show floor with a range of customer examples and expertise in taking your ideas from concept through to finished part. One of those service providers is 3DPrintUK (C10), who will pitch up at TCT Show to demonstrate the price comparison of your current injection moulded parts and potential 3D printed ones. Visitors will be encouraged to insert the dimensions, quantity and surface finish of their desired parts to generate an interactive graph which will show where the breakeven point is between printing a batch production of that component and injection moulding a batch production. Also on the stand will be a display of 40,000 small electrical connectors which the company can produce within a working week.

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INTRODUCING THE TCT SUMMIT R

apid News Publications will raise the bar at the annual design-tomanufacturing TCT Show this September with the launch of TCT Summit. TCT Summit is a new user-led conference packed full of fascinating talks and panel sessions on the latest cutting-edge applications, materials, and processes across aerospace, automotive, rail, healthcare, and business sectors. Following rapid growth, the new conference will attract an even larger unique audience and promises to bring awe-inspiring technology, world-class industry experts & exhibitors and over 10,000 attendees together for a three-day knowledge exchange at Birmingham’s NEC. Visitors can expect to see the latest and most inventive technology that will inspire solutions aimed at solving design and manufacturing challenges. Exhibitors and visitors alike can look forward to thought-provoking talks from industry leaders and experts. The TCT Summit programme is divided into five streams. All sessions are guaranteed to impart expert knowledge, inspire conversation and connect the design and manufacturing communities. Rapid News Group’s Vice President of Content, Strategy and Partnerships, Jim Woodcock explains: “The content at TCT Show has always been regarded as the industry’s finest thanks to the combination of world-class production and the deep industry insight of the editorial team. Working together once again for 2019, these two groups have delivered conferencing that makes TCT Show a must-attend event.

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“TCT Summit doesn’t operate as a discrete annual event, it really ties into the daily, weekly and monthly coverage of the media team and as such is best placed to deliver the best application success stories, cutting-edge technological developments and thought-provoking commentaries the industry has to offer.” Another significant addition to the 2019 TCT Show is the creation of TCT Connect. Sponsored by HP, TCT Connect will enable event participants to arrange one-toone meetings and network; to share and interact in a secure and efficient way, allowing participants to maximise their time at the show by pre-arranging meetings. Other networking opportunities include the introduction of a networking event on the first night as well as a dedicated VIP lounge. Participants will have more

opportunities than ever to grow their networks and create more successful business relationships. “Attendees to this year’s TCT Summit will see more than 20 educational, CPDcertified presentations from the innovators, facilitators, and champions shaping the designto-manufacturing industry. But with access to the TCT Summit including hosted networking events, access to the highlevel meetings programme and attendance at the industry’s Awards night, TCT Summit is much more than passive learning — it’s truly an opportunity to immerse yourself in an industry,” says Jim. To be part of TCT Summit and TCT Connect, you will need to register for TCT Show 2019 which will take place from 24-26 September 2019 at the NEC, Birmingham, UK, conveniently located next to Birmingham International Airport. TCT Show is the place for insight, intelligence and inspiration.

TCT SUMMIT

The Keynotes TUESDAY 24TH SEPTEMBER 10:00-10:30

FURTHER HIGHLIGHTS

The UK’s First Additive Manufacturing Solution for the Rail Industry: Overcoming Certification Challenges for Rail Replacement Parts

TUESDAY 24TH SEPTEMBER 11:45-12:15

MARTIN STEVENS

DR KATY MILNE

TCT SHOW INTRODUCING AND TECH STAGES

WEDNESDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER 11:45-12:15

As ever, the content on the TCT Show Floor doesn’t stop at the main stage, with both TCT Introducing and Tech Stage line-ups throughout the threeday show.

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING MANAGER AT DB ESG (PART OF DEUTSCHE BAHN)

JAMES BROWN

DATA AND PERFORMANCE ENGINEER AT ANGEL TRAINS

10:30-11:00

UK Taking to Space with 3D Printed Rocket Engines OLEG DMITRIEV

HEAD OF TECHNICAL OPERATIONS AT SKYRORA

WEDNESDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER 10:00-10:30 Restoring the Lost Dragons at Kew: The Role of 3D Printing in Historical Restoration CRAIG HATTO

PROJECT LEAD AND DIRECTOR AT HISTORIC ROYAL PALACES AND HATTO & CO

10:30-11:00

3D Medicine at Mayo Clinic: A Deep Dive into Technology and Philosophy AMY ALEXANDER

SENIOR BIOMEDICAL ENGINEER AT MAYO CLINIC DEPARTMENT OF RADIOLOGY’S ANATOMIC MODELING LAB

THURSDAY 26TH SEPTEMBER 10:00-10:30 Pan-Industrial Strategies for Additive Manufacturing RICHARD D’AVENI

BAKALA PROFESSOR OF STRATEGY AT THE TUCK SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

Enabling the Adoption of Additive in the Supply Chain - Sharing Knowledge CHIEF ENGINEER – DRAMA AT DIGITAL ENGINEERING GROUP, MTC

Unleashing Additive Manufacturing Potential in Design of High-Temperature Applications: A Novel Multi-Physics Topology Optimisation Approach WENTAO FU

SPECIALIST ENGINEER AT SIEMENS GAS & POWER

THURSDAY 26TH SEPTEMBER 13:45-14:30 PANEL SESSION: Additive and the Industrial Strategy

MODERATOR – DANIEL O’CONNOR, HEAD OF CONTENT AT TCT GROUP

PANELLISTS – PAUL UNWIN

INDUSTRIAL CO-CHAIR AT AM UK

NICOLE BALLANTYNE

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER MANAGER IN MANUFACTURING AT INNOVATE UK

DAVID WIMPENNY

CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST AT MTC

JONATHAN ROWLEY

DESIGN DIRECTOR AND ARCHITECT

The TCT Introducing Stage is a platform for companies to share their latest developments with the TCT Show audience. The likes of MakerBot CEO Nadav Goshen, AMFG CEO Keyvan Karimi, 3YOURMIND CEO Alexander Ciszek and many more will present on the latest in hardware, software, materials and inspection technologies for design-to-manufacturing innovation. This year’s Tech Stage has been developed with a number of different institutions for sessions on the wider reaches of the industry. Birmingham School of Jewellery, the European Powder Metallurgy Association, the University of Nottingham, the British Plastics Federation and Women in 3D Printing & Cyant will each bring a selection of speakers to the fore for presentations on the varying expertise.

FRANK COOPER

SENIOR LECTURER AND CENTRE MANAGER AT BIRMINGHAM CITY UNIVERSITY

For full programme and to register head to WWW.TCTSHOW.COM

10:30-11:00

An AM Checklist: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff when Buying AM Equipment TODD GRIMM

FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT AT T.A. GRIMM & ASSOCIATES

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tct awards

TCT AWARDS FINALISTS ANNOUNCED FOR 2019

Early bird tickets available at www.tctawards.com up until August 15th 2019

he finalists for the third annual TCT Awards have been announced, featuring projects from the likes of BMW, Ford, Etihad and Riddell. Winners will be selected by the TCT Expert Advisory Board and announced on the evening of September 25th at the National Conference Centre, Birmingham. The ceremony - this year hosted by tech journalist Georgie Barrat - will also see another industry leader inducted into the TCT Hall of Fame and recognise a female innovator with the new TCT Women in 3D Printing Innovator Award. Below is a full run-down of the shortlists for all 15 awards categories. TCT Aerospace Application Award Etihad Interior Panel | BigRep & Etihad Airways Engineering Fixed Wing UAV | Custom Prototypes Retrofitted Seats | BigRep & Dassault Systèmes Rocket Engine Combustion Chamber | FrazerNash Manufacturing; Skyrora & Renishaw VeriPart Digital Supply Chain | Moog; Air New Zealand; Microsoft & ST Engineering TCT Automotive Application Award Automated Design of Jigs and Fixtures | trinckle; Ford & Ultimaker Digitally Manufactured End-Use Parts | Carbon & Ford LED Headlights | Betatype; Progressive technology; Renishaw & EOS Metal F1 Wind Tunnel Components | Additive Industries & Sauber Motorsport PSPM Ball-joint Exhaust System | Poly-Shape & Pipo Moteurs Series-like Car Dashboard | BMW Group TCT Consumer Application Award Choose Water | Luma iD; Choose Water & 3DPRINTUK Home Appliance Spare Parts | Spare Parts 3D & Whirlpool EMEA Precision Diamond Helmet Liner | Carbon & Riddell Titanium Watch Strap | Betatype; Uniform Wares & Renishaw TCT Creative Application Award A Dark Tour of the Universe | BMW Group & European Southern Observatory Church Retable | FIT AG; Pfarrei St Laurentius Altmuhldorf; Kunstlerdo Empfangshalle Munchen & Studio Tessin Met Gala 2019 Fashion Pieces | Protolabs; GE Additive; Jourdan Dunn; Nina Dobrev; Katie Holmes; Julia Garner; Deepika Padukone & House of Z Plastic Pedestrian Bridge | Polymaker; Shanghai Municipal City Government & Shanghai Construction Group Replica Dragon Conservation Project | 3D Systems; Historic Royal Palaces & Paul Jewby Master Carver

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The Green Man Sculpture | VoxelJet UK; Arthology; Studio Reckoner & London Bronze Casting TCT Hardware Award Non-Polymer Systems CFC Technology | Anisoprint Freeform Injection Molding | AddiFab HP Metal Jet | HP LENS 860 | Optomech Sapphire Metal Printer | VELO3D TCT Hardware Award Polymer Systems BigRep Pro | BigRep Everes | Sisma L1 Production System | Carbon LithoProf3D-GSII | Multiphoton Optics Low Force Stereolithography | Formlabs Method | MakerBot Micro AM | Nanofabrica RoboxPRO | CEL UK Silicone Additive Manufacturing Technology | Spectroplast AG Ultimaker S5 | Ultimaker TCT Healthcare Application Award Biometric Regenerative Scaffold | Osteopore International Pte; Queensland Univeristy of Technology; Julius-Maximilians University Wurzburg & Princess Alexandra Hospital, Australia Brain Aneurysm Surgery Aid | Axial 3D & Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare Isolating Breast Cancer Stem Cells | BCN3D Technologies & University of Girona Neuroinfuse Drug Delivery System | Renishaw; North Bristol NHS Trust; The Harley Street Clinic & Herantis Pharma Printed Pills | Added Scientific; Xaar & Astra Zeneca TCT Industrial Application Award Circular Saw for Gas Turbine Repair | Markforged & Siemens Crop Spray Nozzle | Paragon Rapid Technologies; Agrifac Machinery & Carbon Generatively Designed AM Workholding | Matsuura Machinery; Autodesk & HP Industrial Robot Dough Cutting Knife | K3D B.V; Kaak Group; Additive Industries & Civon Project L-Series Direct Drive Valve | Domin Fluid Power ViridiScope Laser Sampling Tool | Quigley Design; Viridian Consultants; 3D Systems; Materialise; Arkk; Pro2Pro & 3DPrintUK

TCT Inspex Application Award Heritage Forensics | University of Warwick & Oxford University Museum of Natural History Nadcap Accredited 3DSL Measurement | Physical Digital Ltd & GOM Non-Destructive Imaging in Forensics | University of Warwick; West Midlands Police; Crown Prosecution Service & University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire The Coracles of Ironbridge | The 3D Measurement Company & Ironbridge Heritage Trust TCT Inspex Hardware Award Artec Micro | Artec FARO OPTOR LAB | Faro Ophir BeamWatch AM | MKS Instruments TCT Materials Award - Non-Polymers ABD-900AM | OxMet Technologies Vibenite 480, Cemented Carbide | VBN Components & Uppsala University XJet S100 Soluble Support | XJet ZTi-Powder | Z3DLAB SAS & CNRS LSPM Laboratory TCT Materials Award - Polymers Essentium TPU 74D-Z | Essentium Inc Filamentive ONE PET | Filamentive Ltd; Tridea & MCPP Netherlands Formlabs Draft Resin | Formlabs SABIC’s AMS31F Support Filament | SABIC; DM Digital Solutions; RP+M & 3NTR Windform P1 | CRP Technology TCT Post-Processing Award B9Clean | B9 Creations H6000 | Hirtenberger Engineered Surfaces Intelligent De-powdering | Siemens & Solukon Maschinebau M3 Digital | Rösler Oberflächentechnik & AM Solutions SLA Resin Removal Solution | Post Process Technologies TCT Software Award AM Part Identifier | 3YOURMIND; Deutsche Bahn & Bosch Group Blacksmith | Markforged DNAam | Valuechain Technology & Zenith Tecnica Dyndrite Additive Toolkit | Dyndrite Corporation Fab Flow | Desktop Metal nTop Platform | nTopology TCT Rising Star Award Winner to be announced at the ceremony.

THE DIRECTORY

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30/05/2018 13:38

TO ADVERTISE HERE CONTACT CAROL HARDY ON + 44 1244 952 386 OR EMAIL CAROL@RAPIDNEWS.COM

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TO ADVERTISE HERE CONTACT CAROL HARDY ON + 44 1244 952 386 OR EMAIL CAROL@RAPIDNEWS.COM

THE DIRECTORY

THE DIRECTORY OXMET TECHNOLOGIES

ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING METALLURGISTS

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Nickel superalloys ABD®-850AM ABD®-900AM available now

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CNC Milling, CNC Turning, Custom Machining Services Quality Guarantee | Delivery On Time - Automotive Drive Products - Sensors Connectors - Robotics Components - Tooling,Clamps and Jigs - Elevator Motor Traction Wheel - Assembly www.symachining.com info@symachining.com

The Next Revolution in Additive Manufacturing: Silicone 3D Printing • Highest resolution • Widest shore hardness range • Safe and biocompatible

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more than a magazine For the latest news, reviews and industry technologies

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27.1 / www.tctmagazine.com / 049

GRIMM COLUMN

THE NEXT LEVEL U

nexpectedly, I witnessed a curious development while supporting RAPID + TCT 2019’s Executive Strategy Summit. This development represents positive advancement for the AM industry and evidence of the progress that has been made. In the summit’s intimate, oneday assembly of mid- and upper-level management from SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises), all participants were eagerly seeking insights that would propel their additive manufacturing (AM) initiatives to the next level. Why was it unexpected? Why was I pleasantly surprised? Well, the summit was developed on the belief that small- and mid-sized manufacturers are at a loss as to how to do more than the basics with AM. The agenda and the speakers that were called upon to communicate insights were assembled to address overwhelm, confusion, understanding and frustration on advanced applications like series production. At the very start of the program, it was clear that these representatives of SMEs in manufacturing had already succeeded with AM in some interesting ways. The questions weren’t along the lines of “Where do I start?” but rather in the tone of “How do I do more?” What really encouraged me is that every attendee had already implemented the application that bridges prototyping and production: jigs and fixtures. And several had already made attempts, to varying degrees of success, at doing production work. My takeaway is that we have come much farther than I had realised. My reaction was feelings of satisfaction and delight. My realisation was that these companies are seeking legitimate guidance on the execution versus philosophical insights as to the rationale. How to take control of AM execution is still something that is being understood. But there is enough of an understanding to produce early versions of best

TODD GRIMM

is a stalwart of the additive manufacturing industry, having held positions across sales and marketing with some of the industry’s biggest names. Todd is currently the AM Industry advisor with AMUG.

tgrimm@tagrimm.com

050 / www.tctmagazine.com / 27.4

practices. Likewise, the tools that help us take control, such as MES (manufacturing executions system) specific to AM, are in the early days of commercialisation. But these tools exist, and more are on their way. And thanks to the efforts of the early adopters, the body of knowledge on execution and appropriate tools is sizable and accessible. This is what the SMEs were seeking; this is what is needed to advance. From this small sample of the manufacturing population, the conclusion is that AM for advanced applications is in the latter stages of the early majority phase of the technology adoption life cycle curve. This model, as you likely know, has five phases: innovators (2.5%), early adopters (13.5%), early majority (34%), late majority (34%) and laggards (16%). Being in the early majority phase, and assuming that we are halfway through it, the great news is that onethird of all manufacturers are on the journey to advanced AM applications. One-third of the manufacturing population is something to celebrate, considering that the model shows that 50 percent will be slow or very, very slow to change (late majority plus laggards). So, congratulations on progress goes to the AM industry and those that are participating. On the other hand, this is a wake-up call for those that are still in a prototyping rut. This realisation that I am sharing is a call to action; a time to make big decisions. Will your business thrive if you accept a position within the late majority or laggards? If not, now is the time to act. You don’t have to dive right in, though. Even small steps such as roadmapping or strategising on AM will keep you in the race. Now is the time to take your AM applications to the next level. Advanced AM applications are no longer contained within the realm of the large, resource-abundant companies; they are the tools of progress for companies of all sizes.

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