TCT Europe 21.1 by TCT Magazine

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ISSUE

FEB 13 JUNE 12

21|1

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DSM on the Fast Track: AM in Motorsport AM in Metals Medical Applications Through the Doors: 3T RPD additive manufacturing and professional 3D printing tct 20/2

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tct additive manufacturing and professional 3D printing ISSN 1751-0333

GROUP EDITOR James Woodcock e: james@rapidnews.com t: + 44 (0) 1244 680222

GROUP ADVERTISING MANAGER Carol Hardy e: carol@rapidnews.com t: + 44 (0) 1244 680222

DESIGN Sam Hamlyn e: sam@rapidnews.com Adrian Price e: adrian@rapidnews.com

C.O.O. / PUBLISHER Duncan Wood e: duncan@rapidnews.com t: + 44 (0) 7798 844259

C.E.O. Mark Blezard e: mark@rapidnews.com t: + 44 (0) 1244 680222

CIRCULATION MANAGER Tracey Nicholls e: tracey@rapidnews.com Published Prices Print Subscriptions - Qualifying Criteria UK - Free Europe - Free US/Canada - £79 ROW - £99 Print Subscriptions - Non Qualifying Criteria UK - £79 Europe - £89 US/Canada - £99 ROW - £119 Newstand Subscriptions (Via Apple) All Territories Annual - £24.99 p.a - equates to $35.99, €28.99 or 37.99 AUD All Territories Single Issue - £4.99 - equates to $5.99, €4.99 or 6.49 AUD The TCT Magazine is published bi-monthly by Rapid News Publications Ltd Carlton House, Sandpiper Way, Chester Business Park, Chester CH4 9QE, UK. t: + 44 (0) 1244 680222 f: + 44 (0) 1244 671074 © 2013 Rapid News Publications Ltd While every attempt has been made to ensure that the information contained within this publication is accurate, the publisher accepts no liability for information published in error, or for views expressed. All rights for The TCT Magazine are reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without prior written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited.

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THE EDITOR 25

Changing perceptions changing industries

n the last 12 months I have noticed that my colleagues within Rapid News (the publishers of TCT) have begun to take quite an interest in what our little team is up to. I get emails from across the company with links to new stories — from 3D printing chocolate to jaw dropping medical breakthroughs. I get asked for comments, for ideas for features or for contacts in specialist fields of 3D printing. Now, one must bear in mind that TCT has been around longer than any of the other magazines in the company and as such every employee has been exposed to it (at the risk of making it sound like an airborne pathogen) since their first day with the company. And for 20 of our 21 years, it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. But now that they’re seeing something about 3D printing over their cereal in the morning, they’re starting to grasp how additive technologies are relevant to what they’re writing about — be that pharmaceuticals or sales. It’s an incredible situation that should remind everyone reading this that within additive technologies lie the solutions to some of the challenges we are grappling today. They might be relatively small challenges like getting a prototype to a client or checking a design change in the real world, or they might be big challenges like reducing the environmental impact of aircraft or the reliability of mass transit systems.

Now, breakfast TV won’t always be a hot-bed of 3D printing hype. The mainstream media has no long-term agenda with additive manufacturing — they will stop when they are bored or the readers, viewers and listeners are bored. They’re not crusading to make sure that there is a 3D printer in every school or that every blue-chip company in their region is making the most of potential competitive advantage. So this is where you come in — to find out how I’d like to introduce you to TCT’s newest contributor, Joris Peels. Joris’ first column / article / call it what you will takes a look at 3D printing in the mainstream media from — as far as I can tell — all angles. From how to get coverage to how to interpret the coverage, he’s got it covered. Another welcome is in order to Daniel O’Connor who has joined the TCT team as Digital and Community Editor. Initially with a focus on Personalize, Daniel will be leading our community engagement across the AM and 3D printing group — exciting times indeed! Jim Woodcock Group Editor james@rapidnews.com

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www.tctmagazine.com

TCT VOLUME 21 | 1

contents

On the fast track: We take a look at how DSM’s Somos stereolithography resins are helping to speed up engine manufacture for Roush Yates. For more detail, please see pages 8 and 9.

3D Printer Prices will Rise; $5K is Near-Term Price Target

News for engineering, product development and manufacturing 6

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feature: Precious Metal Rein van der Mast guides us through a work of love — the Pjotr series of additively manufactured pens.

Special Report: A sneak preview of the Additive Manufacturing Users Group conference, coming up in Florida in April.

editorial insight

tct news and comment

Todd Grimm

18 10

column:

17 Special Report

tct news and comment

on the cover:

column Todd Grimm

Precious Metal

08 cover star Lead News

editorial insight

on the cover

AM in Metals

feature: AM in Metals We take a look at developments in the metals community, with acquisitions news, materials concerns and some case studies to boot.

feature: Through the Doors: 3T RPD Jim Woodcock heads south to Newbury to see 3T RPD’s impressive plastics and metals AM manufacturing facilities.

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additive manufacturing and professional 3D printing

feature: AM in Medical Applications Have the predictions come true, or is AM in medicine dying a death?

company profile: Protoservice A peek inside the bureaux at the heart of Italy’s ‘Motor Valley’.

feature: Through the doors: John Burn Age is no barrier to innovation, as 109-year-old John Burn Ltd demonstrates!

How to get your news in the papers and on the TV Joris Peels takes a light-hearted look at the 3D printing hype machine and comes up with some serious suggestions.

60 Materials

51 Software

column

49 Special Report

AM in Medical Applications

column Joris Peels

Through The Doors: 3T RPD

Through The Doors: John Burn

feature: Software for design and manufacture The world of software is changing, and there’s no better indication of this than the ICR3ATE and QuoteServer products.

special report: Tromans heads East Graham Tromans reports from China where he found enthusiasm and confusion about AM technology...

feature: Materials Focus Impacting on every industry, materials remain one of the most important links in the AM chain. 7

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[cover star]

On the fast track To win in the racing industry, you must cross the finish line first. When developing the engines needed to get there, timing is a critical element.

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oush Yates, a well-known builder of racing engines, is no newcomer to this battle. The company’s highperformance engines require an extensive amount of development time and stringent testing to create the most powerful machines available. So how do they reduce their development time and costs while increasing their testing results? They use additive manufacturing technology to prototype engine components that they can then test for all aspects of form, fit and function. Recently, Roush Yates decided to use this process to redesign an intake manifold. To cast this part in metal it would take weeks to create the tooling alone and would cost about $25,000. In just days, they produced a prototype of a casting using stereolithography and Somos stereolithography materials by DSM. They chose to use Somos WaterShed XC 11122, since it provided the required performance properties: accuracy for form, strength of machinability for fit and superior clarity while testing the functionality. To complete the job, the part was built with casting dimensions after the CAD file was completed. This allowed Roush Yates to qualify the casting design and then machine the prototyped casting by milling surfaces, drilling, tapping, installing inserts, and so on. Machining the prototype not only ensures the proper fit to the engine block, but also provides the user with information about which tools and fixtures will be necessary for the CNC operation when machining the more expensive metal casting in the future. The machined manifold was assembled to the engine and prepared for testing on a Dynamometer. The ‘dyno-run’ accelerated from 4,500 rpm to 9,000 rpm with over 700 horsepower. While each ‘dyno-run’ lasts only a short time, the test may be repeated up to 100 times. The part proved to be durable through this rigorous testing while providing clarity for visual inspections. The clarity of the manifold gives the opportunity to see fuel build-up during testing, which can be corrected before final production. Dan Keenan, Director of Product Development at Roush Yates Engines explained, “We extensively use Somos Materials in our stereolithography machine as an integral part of our design and development cycle. It allows us to verify fit and function faster than machining or casting prototypes. We can cut the design and development time of some products by as much as 45%.” With their outstanding engineering staff and utilisation of additive manufacturing using Somos stereolithography materials by DSM, Roush Yates continues to be recognised as an innovative leader in the racing community while “staying ahead of the curve.”

About Roush Yates:

, designs, engineers and Roush Yates, of Mooresville, N.C. nes with the power to crafts high-performance racing engi bility you’d expect from dura and er perform and the horsepow Roush and Robert Yates. At legendary NASCAR pioneers Jack is Power and Performance, Roush Yates Engines, the mission n, design, precision vatio inno which is achieved through p. More information about nshi sma craft ul skillf engineering, and .roushyates.com. their products can be found at www

DSM Functional Materials Somos Materials Group www.dsm.com 9

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[news]

3D SYSTEMS ANNOUNCES THREE-FOR-TWO STOCK SPLIT 3D Systems Corporation has announced that its Board of Directors has declared a three-fortwo split of the company’s common stock in the nature of a 50% stock dividend. On February 22, 2013, each stockholder of record at the close of business on February 15, 2013 will receive one additional share for every two shares held on the record date. In lieu of fractional shares, shareholders will receive a cash payment based on the closing market price of DDD stock on the record date. Trading is expected to begin on a split-adjusted basis on February 25, 2013. www.3dsystems.com

GEOMAGIC SIGNS MORE THAN 30 NEW RESELLERS WORLDWIDE Geomagic has signed over 30 new resellers worldwide as part of its Geomagic Spark product launch. The company also kicked off a loyalty promotion that rewards existing customers with a price incentive as they add Geomagic Spark into their product design processes. Geomagic Spark, the company’s newest 3D software solution, blends live 3D scanning, point cloud and polygon mesh editing, directmodeling CAD and more – all within a single application and at what the company refers to as a game-changing price. With included CAD tools, such as assembly relationship modelling and annotated 2D drawing creation, Geomagic Spark is helping automotive, electronics, industrial design, consumer goods, tooling and

aerospace companies accelerate product development, facilitate better inter-team communication, increase reliability in scan-toCAD operations, produce documentation and shorten design windows. www.geomagic.com

VIDEO SPECIAL: Industry expert Todd Grimm dispels some of the myths surrounding 3D printing. For all those caught up in the mainstream media hype it is essential viewing. Check out the video here: http://mytct.co/YBdn60

ERRATA In the last issue of 2012 we ran a matrix of the current professional AM systems and 3D printers on sale. It was meant to be a comprehensive index, but in the rush to production we missed a couple of companies out. I would like to sincerely apologise for the mistake and make amends here:

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ExOne Corporation: ExOne has recently gone public with its IPO and now trades on the NASDAQ exchange as XONE. The company produces an array of systems offering build sizes up to 1800 mm x 1000 mm x 700 mm for 3D printing in sand and 780 mm x 400 mm x 400 mm for 3D printing with metals. Smaller systems are available for research labs and small-scale manufacturing. The company unveiled the M-Flex production system at IMTS last year (see page 19 of issue 20/5, September 2012 for a review) — the M-Flex can print in a range of materials at a size of 400 mm x 250 mm x 250 mm. For a full overview of the company’s abilities please visit www.exone.com

SLM Solutions: SLM Solutions manufacture a range of selective laser melting systems from their base in Lübeck, northern Germany. The company launched the dual-laser SLM 500HL system at Euromold last November — you can find out more about the development of this 500 mm x 280 mm x 325 mm system on page 23 of this issue. The SLM 500HL is the largest in the company’s range, which also includes the 125 HL, 250 HL and 280 HL. As well as direct additive manufacturing solutions the company offers solutions for vacuum casting, investment casting and an RP service centre. To see the specifications of the full line up, please visit www.slm-solutions.com

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EDUCATION TAKES CENTRE STAGE AT TCT SHOW + PERSONALIZE 2013 Rapid News Communications Group (RNCG), 3D Systems Corporation (3D Systems) and Black County Atelier (BCA) have announced an initiative that will see schoolchildren get hands-on experience at the two day 3D printing spectacular that is TCT Show + Personalize 2013, which will take place September 25/26 at the NEC, Birmingham, UK. Up to 300 schoolchildren will have a chance to get their hands on CAD and 3D Printing technologies in a workshop setting run by Black Country Atelier using equipment donated for the event by 3D Systems. Duncan Wood, COO at Rapid News commented: “We have been running TCT Bright Minds UK for a number of years as part of the TCT show but have always wanted to have a greater impact on a wider range of students. This exciting new partnership for

2013 enables us to do just that. Black Country Atelier are experts in delivering education sessions in this technology area and the huge amount of equipment generously provided free of charge by 3D Systems means we are now able to scale this programme up and have a much bigger impact. We are looking forward to working with BCA and 3D Systems to really inspire the next generation of designers and engineers.” www.tctshow.com

From www.tctmagazine.com GEOMAGIC FREEFORM AND 3D PRINTING USED TO RECREATE KING One of the biggest stories across the news over the last few weeks has been that of Richard III, one of England’s most notorious monarchs whose two-year reign between 1483 and 1485 has been subject to stories, myth and legend ever since. The last of the Plantagenet dynasty, Richard III died at the Battle of Bosworth Field and his remains buried in a church in Leicester. Over time the church, friary and grave of King Richard were lost (how, I don’t know) to the annals of time. To cut a very long story short, the monarch’s remains were located under a car park (or parking lot if you’re on that side of the Atlantic) and the excavation of the site commenced. With much digging and scraping the skeleton of what may or may not have been Richard III was discovered…

CARBON FIBRE AND ALUMINIUM FILLED LASER SINTERING POWDER RP Support has launched a new laser sintering powder, PA 550-ACF. Graphite in colour, the powder is a Nylon 12 based material, filled with aluminium and carbon fibre. The powder is reportedly different to any other commercially available sintering material available on the UK market today and has been developed to meet specific customer needs for both tooling applications and F1 applications including wind tunnel models, internal on-car parts such as electronic enclosures and jigs for trimming final composite parts. www.rpsupport.co.uk

FORMER Z CORP CEO JOINS BOARD AT SPACECLAIM SpaceClaim, provider of flexible and affordable 3D for engineering, design, and manufacturing, has announced John Kawola, CEO of Harvest Automation, an agricultural robotic start-up, has joined the SpaceClaim Board of Directors. Prior to Harvest, John was the CEO of Z Corporation, one of the early pioneers of the 3D printing industry. Z Corporation was acquired in 2012. Prior to Z Corporation, John held technical and marketing positions at Albany International and General Electric. John holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Renssaeler and an MBA from Union College. “I am thrilled to join SpaceClaim’s Board of Directors. I’m looking forward to contributing

PRESIDENT OBAMA: STYLE OR SUBSTANCE? When the most powerful man in the Western world says that the technology you’ve been preaching about has “the potential to revolutionise ” you’ve probably got the right to feel a little smug… Dan O’Connor has just joined the AM and 3D Printing Group here at Rapid News. Read his thoughts on the POTUS SOTU address over on Personalize: http://mytct.co/131Ms5D

For the full story, visit http://mytct.co/VzfpIQ

to the continued success of the company. I believe 3D Direct Modeling is the future of 3D design and I’m excited to help shape the continued growth and future of SpaceClaim,” said Kawola.

‘Image Courtesy of the BBC’

www.spaceclaim.com

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[Grimm column]

3D Printer Prices will Rise; $5k is Near-Term Price Target WORDS | TODD GRIMM @ T.A. GRIMM & ASSOCIATES, INC

or the average home user, there are two tenets: affordability and simply, rock-solid performance. The problem is that these characteristics are at odds with one another when expenses are spread across low production volumes. With this in mind, I regret to say that the dreams of sub-$500 3D printers in every home won’t be realised any time soon. Instead, prices will rise. While consumers may be disappointed, corporate users will have cause to rejoice. The consumer-class 3D printers will be a catalyst to lower prices in the professional market. What we will see is the development of the prosumer market with a price point of $5,000 (£3,200 ; €3,700). The sub-$1,000 3D printer market won’t disappear, but the real action will be in the $5,000 range. I’m not omniscient; I’m just observing a current trend and applying long-standing economic principles. Progress has a price There are many facets to my prediction, but the key driver is the fact that product development, product support and business operations cost a lot of money. Those expenses must be recouped with a sizable profit upside. For the most part, the flood of consumer-class systems has popped up because they ride the coattails of early technology innovators and the collaborative masses participating in the open-source development of 3D printers. This free R&D dramatically lowers the barriers to entry.

With little or no cost for R&D, it is simply a matter of grabbing open-source designs and code and tweaking them to differentiate the 3D printer by adding some bells and whistles. Next, source components, many of which are off-the-shelf. And finally, invest in a logo, website and some rudimentary manuals. Voilà, a business is born. With this business model, there is profit in a $500 or $1000 printer, if orders follow. But in an over-crowded market (honestly, do we need three dozen low-end 3D printer companies?), those orders may not materialise. So expenses mount, cash flow suffers and profits become elusive. What’s a cash-strapped startup to do? It can either differentiate by being a price leader or by offering a superior product with superior support. However, superior doesn’t come easily or cheaply. That is why prices will rise and why the consumer-class machines must go upmarket. While many have and more will try to differentiate on price, the outcome won’t be pleasant. The consumer market is too small, presently, to offer the economies of scale that decrease cost of goods and distribute fixed costs over high unit sales. Without 12 million 2D printers purchased per year, do you really believe HP, Lexmark and Canon could sell them for less than $100?

Prosumer products fall between professional- and consumer-grade in terms of prices as well as standards in quality, complexity, or functionality.

$5k 13

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[Grimm column] Evidence Mounts As I stated earlier, I am not omniscient, just observant. n I submit into evidence: 3D Systems, MakerBot and Formlabs. n 3D Systems launched the Cube with a $1,300 price tag. The latest generation, CubeX, sells for $2,500 to $4,000. n MakerBot’s first product, the CupCake, launched with a price tag of $1,000 that later fell to $450. Next up, the Thing-OMatic kit came out at $1,200. Then the Replicator launched with a $1,750 price tag, and the latest incarnations, the Replicator 2 and 2X, now sell for $2,200 and $2,800, respectively. n Formlabs, which didn’t have the benefit of free, open-source development, will launch its Form1 with a $3,300 price. What makes these 3D printers different, and why are they priced so high? There are three very good reasons.

Product Advancement

Professional-grade

Mousetrap Fallacy

Just look at them. The stylish designs and custom cabinetry is much more expensive to develop and manufacture than unsightly laser-cut panels. Under the hoods, I’d be surprised if the bulk of components are sourced from an industrial supply catalog. To drive these 3D printers, the three companies have also invested in software development. While the apps may have their roots in open-source code, the software is improved and the user interface is clean, simple and polished. What we can’t see, but buyers will experience, is the investment in product documentation, support staff and a business infrastructure that move these companies from a garage operation to a real business.

The claims of “professional-grade” create expectations. To meet those expectations, investments must be made. Commercial users don’t have time to fiddle with a temperamental peripheral. They demand results, and they expect quality — in the parts, the machines and the backing organisation — that cannot be compromised. That requires R&D, manufacturing prowess and a well-run organisation.

Contrary to the idiom “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door,” a great product will not be a great success without an investment in sales, marketing and distribution channels. For this reason alone, most of the consumer-class 3D printer makers will fail. If the world doesn’t know about your mousetrap and what makes it different, sales will be dismal. So, significant investments are required.

Prosumer Convergence The named companies already have products in the $2,220 to $4,000 price range. What will take them to $5,000, and what will bring professional 3D printers to same price point? For the consumer-class systems, the professional market is alluring, as shown by the “professional-grade” add-on to product descriptions. Simply put, it is a matter of working smarter, not harder. I’ll start with finances. On average, products have a 50% to 66% gross profit margin. I’ll use 50%. For every $5,000 3D printer sold, that is a $2,500 gross profit. A $500 3D printer yields $250 gross profit. So, a company would have to sell ten times more $500 3D printers for same gross profit — and far less net profit due to the added expense to sell, inventory, and manage. That means more work for less money. Another factor is repeat business. Consumers will buy just one 3D printer and consume $250 of material per year. For businesses, there will be multiple 3D printers consuming fourtimes more material per machine. Repeat business to an established customer is far more effective and much less costly than a one-off opportunity, as any sales and marketing professional will tell you. For these two reasons, there is more money and bigger opportunities in the commercial segment. That’s why consumerclass machines will go upmarket. Now, for the other side of the coin. As consumer-class 3D printers go upmarket with a lower price point, there will be competitive pressure on professionalclass machines. If the two are easily differentiated, commercial prices can remain stable. But as the consumer-class adds more features and capabilities, the differentiation gets smaller so buyers cannot justify a price disparity. In response, the entry-level, professional-class machines come down in price to remain competitive. My projected $5,000 target is somewhat arbitrary. It just feels right considering that the past price milestones were $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000. The unknown factor that will define the prosumer price point is price elasticity: the market response to changing prices. If a 50% price drop doesn’t produce more than double the sales, it is a bad decision. On the other hand, if a 100% price increase leads to a 50% decline in unit sales, that’s a bad decision, too. Ultimately, price elasticity will dictate where the prosumer market falls in the $3,000 to $7,000 range. While the prosumer market will be at the center of many 3D printer manufacturers’ business plans, the consumer market will continue to chug along. There will be low-cost options, but they will lack the quality, polish and features of their prosumer counterparts. But the dreams of a $100 3D printer will go unmet in any form other than a child’s plaything. As for the $20,000 to $1 million professional market, it will continue to be the choice of demanding professionals with demanding applications.

The investments increase operating expenses and costs of goods sold, and therefore, prices must rise.

$5k

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[AMUG]

AMUG Preview

Additive Manufacturing Users Group, Jacksonville, Florida, USA April 14–18, 2013 The countdown is on for the next instalment of the Additive Manufacturing Users Group Conference, and it’s a special one! This year marks the 25th anniversary of the AMUG (though it has taken a few different forms over the years), a quarter of a century that has seen unprecendented growth and change in the industry — probably because it covers most of the commercial history of AM technologies. For how we got to the AMUG, see the ‘A Brief History’ sidebar. The AMUG received a lot of interest in its conference from those that attended TCT Live 2012. According to Gary Rabinovitz, AMUG’s president, one of the very first conference registrations came from a UK professor that made good on his promise at TCT Live that he would “cross the pond” to be at the conference. When asked why anyone would attend both events, Graham Tromans, AMUG ambassador and President of G. P. Tromans Associates, said, “TCT Live is an exceptional trade show with a very good, free, show-floor conference that attracts experts and those that have just started looking at additive manufacturing. AMUG is a smaller event, which runs for five days, that opens its doors only to those that own or operate additive manufacturing equipment.”

, when the 3D Systems North A Brief History: It all started in 1988 Group was founded. As the name American Stereolithography Users olithography users. In 2001, 3D indicates, this was a group for stere technology. Shortly after, the SLS Systems acquired DTM and its Laser Sintering Users Group ctive Sele the with users group merged Group. to become the 3D Systems Users technologies from other additive As more and more users operated s group elected to open its doors user the es, manufacturing compani sors Programme) to companies (speakers, Exhibitor Expo and Spon the group changed its name to ly, other than 3D Systems. According 3DS Users Group, Inc. (3DSUG). voted to open the users group to At the 2011 conference, members additive manufacturing ial owners/operators of all commerc turing Users Group was born. ufac Man tive Addi technologies, and the

He continued: “So, at AMUG, you have user-to-user information transfers from those that have first-hand experiences. It’s more like an opportunity to get free consultations from dozens of people that have hard-learned lessons.” Tromans noted that he volunteers his time to both organisations and that he has religiously attended both events for many years. This year will be the just the third time that TCT will be onsite at the AMUG conference but it certainly won’t be the last. In fact, the events growth means that we are now sending two team members to report on (and get involved with) the discussion, debate and learning that takes place every year. If you have the chance to attend I would strongly suggest you pull out all the stops to get there. Until the 15th of March conference attendee registration is just $595 (£380; €444) which represents excellent value for money — don’t forget that you will be fed and watered for the duration of the event as well as treated to a surprise evening out! In other news, the AMUG Board has decided to make a change to its highest honour. During the 2012 business meeting, several people noted that the “Dinosaur Award” carries a negative connotation in some regions of the world. Some recipients also noted that the name didn’t convey the prestige to anyone outside of the AMUG community. To promote the prestige, yet keep some ties to its rich history, this accolade is now the Distinguished INnovator Operator Award, and its acronym is DINO. The creative mind behind the new name is Dan Maas of ExOne. The criteria — industry tenure and contributions — remain the same. However, it will become much harder to become a DINO: Only five (maximum) will be presented each year. In the past, it was five per technology. For more information visit www.am-ug.com

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[Metals in AM]

Sponsored by

he hype surrounding ‘3D printing’ has been limited predominantly to the lower end of the market and as such has focussed on plastics. The two biggest companies in the industry in 3D Systems and the newly formed Stratasys Ltd have virtually no footprint in the metals sector. 3D Systems still lists the sPro 125 and 250 machines that were historically rebadged MTT machines, and Stratasys is only ploughing the polymers furrow. A glance at their share prices (and there’s not enough paper in the world to discuss that in any depth) shows that superficially at least, they must be doing something right… But how is it that the technology that is touted by some at least as one of the saviours of manufacturing (again, we can’t get into that here) is such an overcrowded melting pot of small companies? Only Renishaw, which had total group revenue of £288m in 2011, could be considered a large company and even here the AM division is still a small part of the overall company.

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Across the hall at Euromold, SLM Solutions showed its own big machine — the SLM 500HL — with a 500 mm x 280 mm x 325 mm build volume. You can read more about the development of this machine on page 23.

Certainly the sector is ripe for some ‘consolidation’, either through intra-sector acquisition or from large OEMs looking to strengthen their supply chains and buying up their metals AM suppliers — much like GE Aviation did with the acquisition of Morris Technologies at the end of 2012. In this instance however it is likely the expertise, rather than the hardware, that was the driver for the purchase.

Looking back to stocks and shares and Arcam (trading as ARCM on the Stockholm exchange) has risen from around 42SEK to 224SEK in the last 51 weeks. The company has historically focused on a single electron gun for multiple applications but is now exploring both more powerful guns and smaller spot size guns. It was telling during my trip to the Advanced Additive Manufacturing Group at The University of Sheffield (more of whom in the next issue) that the three metals machines that were front and centre were from Arcam.

In other metals news ExOne joined the ‘big league’ of AM with an IPO in January. ExOne (trading as XONE on the NASDAQ) offered 5.3 million shares to take itself public. The stock started trading at $24 dollars and was 39% up by the middle of the next day’s trading at over $33. Queue the investing websites barrage of contradictory buy/don’t buy advice and tales of industrial revolutions/overpriced stocks…

EOS tend to be quieter on the marketing front than many of their competitors but a flick through this magazine will show how deeply entrenched they are in the metals market. From Morris Technologies in the US to 3T RPD in the UK — wherever there is substantial metals processing ability you will find EOS machines. In fact, I have seen more M270 and M280 machines on my travels in the last 12 months than anything else.

Also in the US the POM Group was wholly acquired by DM3D Technology LLC — a newly formed company under whose name it now trades. The technology offering remains unchanged with the closed-loop deposition process offering freeform fabrication, hardfacing and the ability to produce multi-material components.

Across the metals sector the race for ‘big’ is stepping up a gear. ExOne have always had the capacity for large metals parts, albeit with AM as an indirect process. Concept laser revealed the largest direct metals technology at Euromold in the form of the X line 1000R, on which the company collaborated with Daimler and the Fraunhofer Institute to realise. Essentially purpose made for Daimler, the behemoth machine can produce laser melted parts in a 630 mm × 400 mm × 500 mm build bed. The size of the whole machine belies the relatively small step up in build space thanks to the inclusion of a rotating build bed to facilitate a quick changeover from building to finishing.

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There’s a light at the end of the tunnel... and, it’s not a train! It is almost two years since Renishaw acquired MTT and entered the additive manufacturing market, so what, you may wonder, has changed? The machine looks pretty much the same, albeit with some subtle differences, but at a time when the hype associated with the launch of a new model every five minutes seems to be the way to grab market attention, some may feel that Renishaw seems content to sell the same product with nothing more than a name change! Not so, as Robin Weston of Renishaw’s Additive Manufacturing Products Division explains...

Renishaw www.renishaw.com

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hile it may appear to the untrained eye that Renishaw has simply rebadged an MTT machine — and not generated the ‘new product hype’ that appears to be driving the industry at the moment — there are a couple of key issues here that I would like to address. The first is that hype alone doesn’t produce precise dental prosthetics, medical implants, aerospace components and critical components in high-tech devices; what does is proven machines and processes. Just ask any production engineer. Secondly, simply focusing on the look of the machine, whether or not it has a new badge, is missing the point — and here I’m going to divulge a trade secret: If you buy any metalbased additive manufacturing system then you have, at most, invested about half of the resource that you will need to in order to make quality components; the rest of the investment will be the time and applications effort that is required to achieve good results. Clearly all manufacturers have both a responsibility and a vested interest in assisting customers in getting the best out of this technology but the market mechanisms and tools to do this are sometimes unclear, not universal and are still heavily dependent on the expertise of the machine providers — largely due to the relative immaturity of the technology in comparison to accepted methods of manufacture. Most AM machine manufacturers do take some responsibility for sharing applications expertise and know how, although as commercial businesses the supply of this knowledge is not infinitely available and perpetually free at the point of use. Like others, Renishaw is working on developing the necessary resources and tools to impart this knowledge but it’s often the case that highly proficient users of AM soon accelerate past the point where machine OEMs can provide applications expertise; not least because of the acute and precise demands of each application and frequently because the design intent for the component is commercially sensitive or regulated.

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[Metals in AM]

Aerial view of the company’s Miskin production site Two recent events of note in the AM industry exemplify this situation extremely well. In the US, GE’s acquisition of Morris Technologies clearly recognised that the significant investments made at Morris in applications and process expertise are extremely valuable and difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce quickly from the ground up. And closer to home the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) has recently launched a competition titled ‘Inspiring new design freedoms in additive manufacturing / 3D printing’ that will see £7 million invested in collaborative R&D that stimulates innovation in AM and accelerates its uptake by overcoming the barriers caused by what the TSB describes as the “Dirty secrets of AM”. Included in these are the “unexpected pre- and post-processing requirements” that are often not fully understood and can come as a ‘surprise’ to new users, plus the increasingly accepted view, that if AM is to become ubiquitous then components made must take account of the design for process constraints imposed by layer manufacture. So, what has changed at Renishaw? Ask any member of staff at the Additive Manufacturing Products Division and you will get a range of views. Certainly a key change is that the production of the current machine has moved into a purpose built area within our newly refurbished Miskin site, located close to Cardiff, which was formally opened on 10th October 2012 by The Rt Hon Carwyn Jones AM, First Minister of Wales. The 460,000 square foot facility has already benefited from a £15 million investment with more to come. What is not so apparent is the amount of effort and dedication from the design and production engineering teams across Renishaw that has been required in order to achieve this and to meet the company’s world-class production standards; from uploading all machine components (down to the smallest hex bolt) into Siemens NX, to embodying every manufacturing operation in detailed work instructions. All of this effort ultimately benefits our customers. For decades, Renishaw’s manufacturing processes and work processes have been proven to deliver high quality products to customers globally that demand the highest quality, from aerospace and electronics, to medical and semiconductors. Now, the AM market is also benefitting from this ongoing investment, not just with the focus on quality, but in other areas such as our ability to rapidly scale-up our production facilities to account for increases in demand. With standardised training procedures and operational processes, additional build cells and staff can quickly be deployed. This is important, because I believe that it will only take a relatively small increase in the number of medium volume manufacturing applications to cause an order of magnitude shift in demand for metal-based AM systems.

The challenge for machine manufacturers, as always, is assessing the scale and pace of market change, and particularly so for those trying to forecast demand and develop product strategies that reflect what the market will want in the medium and longer term. This is something that is well understood at Renishaw with a great example being the REVO 5 axis measuring system, which is capable of reducing a cylinder head measurement process on co-ordinate measuring machines from 55 to 5 minutes; an amazing 900% improvement in throughput. The original design concepts for REVO go back to the early 90s before the fundamental technology building blocks, including computer processing power, existed for such a product. That visionary approach, long-term market commitment, and constant drive for improvement, will contribute significantly to products for the AM industry, both in the medium and long-term. However, along with innovation and manufacturing excellence comes another critical aspect of the Renishaw philosophy — our long term commitment to supporting our customers. Over four decades we have invested in over 60 wholly owned offices in 32 countries and developed mutually beneficial relationships with countless manufacturing companies. To quote our chairman Sir David McMurtry: “Renishaw fundamentally believes that success comes from patented and innovative products and processes, high-quality manufacturing, and the ability to provide local customer support in all its markets around the globe.” Renishaw may still be relatively new to the AM industry but our track record is built on supporting manufacturing with products that enhance efficiency and give engineers confidence in their processes.

Renishaw’s AM involvement: more than just a new badge

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[Metals in AM]

How BIG will it grow? Large SLM machine development and technology WORDS | STEFAN RITT @ SLM SOLUTIONS

dditive manufacturing technologies are becoming accepted in the manufacturing industry and are gaining ground at the shop floor level. With the acceptance of the basic technological parameters of metals AM the call for higher machine productivity was quick to follow. Patience just isn’t the engineer’s best friend… This has triggered a drive for the largest and fastest machines among the manufacturers of selective laser melting equipment as one could see “live at Euromold” in Frankfurt, Germany in December last year.

The ‘compact’ concept in this drive is being developed by SLM solutions GmbH in Northern Germany, which is a doubling of its previous version to result in an impressive ‘2+2=4’ Laser assortment to a maximum of 2.8 kW laser power — which might make Luke Skywalker jealous — resulting in a calculated build speed of above 70 cm3 per hour. To increase the build speed the engineers have developed some novel strategies: Hull/Core-strategy A 400 W and a 1 kW laser work in one optical track are operated alternately. After the 400 W laser has built the outside contour of a part in 3 to 5 layers the 1000 W laser melts the core area through all layers in one go, saving melting time across the whole build significantly. Double track optics Two optical tracks with two lasers each project on the build area at the same time. The machine can be set to build one big part or multiple small parts and the buildup will happen simultaneously in different areas of the powder bed. Another accelerator!

Two way powder feed Because of the specific design of the powder feeding mechanism it can feed powder both ways — in the forward move as well as in the reverse movement. This saves 50% of auxiliary cycle time in the process, which for a build of 200,000 layers could result in hours of build time saved.

Pushing for speed and size on one end consequently creates new challenges with high weights and high volume on the other side. To escape this “engineering catch22” a removable build volume has been designed. This not only allows an easier access to the large and heavyweight products but also allows reduced standstill of the machine as a new volume can be installed and another build process be started while the first part is removed and cleaned. SEPIA (Simple Easy Powder Input Appliance) The huge hunger for powder while building big parts fast presented the next challenge for the engineers. Specific semi-manual devices had to be designed to move and handle the powder containers without problems while preparing and refilling the SLM 500 HL machine.

Simplified gas filter All selective laser melting machines no matter which manufacturer, all work under protective gas atmosphere that has to be filtered in circulation during the build process. Here, the automotive industry not only presents 100 years of engineering but also quite a few smart ideas. So, why not just adapt a truck filter cartridge from known manufacturers. Easy to get, easy to use, easy to replace. If life only always would be like that! With the engineering challenges addressed it’s time to ask the big question: “Is this really a feasible production technology already?” As someone once said, ‘please remember that the engineers are the camels the accountants ride on!’ Fortunately SLM Solution’s straight and clear answer to those in doubt is a “YES”! On-demand and individual production of parts, on-site where they are needed and in increasing size is definitely one of the modern engineer’s dreams. Additionally we all know that natural resources are limited, the awareness of that fact is rising and educated and experienced experts are becoming a rare species due to changes in society and educational structures. However, the production of large parts can be some of the most wasteful processes in this regard, so larger-scale selective laser melting processes can help to reduce the overall environmental impact of larger and larger parts. The benefits of reducing weight on small components is well documented, but if engineers can now start to apply some of the same techniques to larger parts the savings could be dramatic. The hunger for larger machines is easy to see if you look in the right places — automotive customers that see a 500 mm x 500 mm machine immediately ask when there will be a 1 m x 1 m machine. A modern production technology has to address these factors or will die like the dinosaurs because the environment changed and food got limited. i

SLM Solutions www.slm-solutions.com

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[Metals in AM]

Making it personal

Pjotr www.pjotr.biz

Creating one-of-a-kind luxurious products with metals AM As part of TCT’s look at AM in metals we came across a new project by Rein van der Mast — Pjotr pens. Using his ‘Cavalry’ pen as a proof of concept Rein has been able to demonstrate that selective laser melting in titanium (with the help of other additive and non-additive processes) can be employed to create bespoke high-value artifacts today. With a passion for the project and the ‘subject’ of his pen, Rein was able to overcome some significant technical challenges while developing novel design, production and finishing methods.

ccording to Rein van der Mast, additive manufacturing is about to become an important ingredient for product customisation. He would like to demonstrate this proposition with the fountain pen. For this, he has nearly reinvented this precious writing tool. Supported by Materialise, LayerWise and Innplate, Van der Mast successfully produced an exotically sculptured product in such a way that every single product is one of a kind. This includes unique pieces and small series of pieces, where each item is slightly different. He crossed the borders of known technological solutions multiple times. With the Pjotr pens, he is able to deliver his ‘proof of concept’.

Rapid News, Time-Compression Technologies, TCT “When I was young, I played with Lego and Fischertechnik. My parents took me to various museums filled with paintings and sculptures, which are things I still enjoy seeing. I like mechanical things because of the way in which they interact with their environment, both physically and aesthetically. When something mechanical looks ugly, to me it feels like it will not perform well. So after high school, I studied Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology.” Van der Mast became aware of the existence of the ‘time-compression technologies’ when he came across a copy of Rapid News (nowadays known as TCT Magazine) at the CIM Center of the Mechanical Engineering faculty (CIM stands for computer integrated manufacturing). Van der Mast reminisced: “It was all about building objects ‘additively’ without moulds or subtractive machining. In my eyes, this was something revolutionary and its potential struck me deeply. Back then, I think it was in ’94, it included rapid prototyping and a bit of rapid tooling. Brittle pieces After obtaining his degree and completing military service, he lead the engineering department of a manufacturer of sustainable

consumer goods for a couple of years. One of his projects involved the redesign of a portable lantern with a solar panel optionally attached to it, designed for the Finnish oil company Neste. This lantern was intended for civilians living in third world countries. Van der Mast explained: “I first introduced 3D CAD. At that time, I had worked with AutoCAD 10 under DOS up to 14 under Windows. So I naturally opted for Mechanical Desktop, which was pretty similar to AutoCAD, for both surface and solid modelling. In ’96, this made me one of the first Mechanical Desktop users in The Netherlands.” He also introduced rapid prototyping for creating small series of ‘functional’ prototypes. Van der Mast continued: “Materialise made them for me in ’97 with the .STL files I had FTPed to Leuven. AutoCAD users probably remember the ‘facetres’ command for determining the average triangle size, as well as the file size. The parts were made in Leuven using stereolithography.” At that time, pieces like that were brittle, sensitive to UV and geometrically instable. Because of all this, Materialise used the prints to create silicon moulds and filled the moulds with polyurethanes to generate realistic parts, including a colorless, transparent lantern ‘glass’. The results were much better than he had hoped for, and the items were sent to Neste and were also demonstrated at various trade fairs by Materialise. Customisation “After having worked as an employee for a while, I felt it was time for me to become an entrepreneur, to focus on industrial design engineering enhanced by additive manufacturing, to create knowledge and to share it with others. However, in ’98 it was too early for me to start a business based exclusively on ‘time-compression technologies’ as they were still

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[Metals in AM] refered to (nowadays better known as 3D printing and additive manufacturing).” Later, when ‘rapid’ became ‘additive’, the focus of his business slowly shifted back to additive manufacturing, mass customisation and on creating suitable business models with both technologies. Van der Mast explained: “Manufacturers of consumer products have finally started listening to individual clients. This is made possible by the Internet. When manufacturers digitally link all their machines and stocks, they can have every single product configured separately. This can, of course, be done without any kind of additive manufacturing. But in some cases it can be rather appealing to have the individual customer decide on the final shape of a part, as he probably prefers this, rather than opting for a general design. In this case, additive manufacturing is very well suited.” Digital sculpting and 3D printing Van der Mast tries to connect additive manufacturing to customisation wherever possible and once proven, he started producing, using the successful methods that he had found. “I found a product that matched perfectly: an item that is luxurious, certainly when personalised, and well paid for. A product that truly combines art and technology: the fountain pen. “By creating every single object as something unique means that every piece needs to be designed separately. Of course, the time spent on design may be less if only small aspects vary, the same templates are used, or in the case of relational dimensions or interdependent variables, etc. All of this, however, dramatically reduces the exclusiveness of the output. So in my case, a significant part of the costs lies in the design,” said Van der Mast. Van der Mast came up with a concept in which generally the essential parts differ only slightly. Small series and even single pieces would be made based on themes requested by clients. Small series would include several differing elements, such as the user’s monogram or initials, in 3D, only much more pronounced than with an engraving. Cavalry For the first pen, his proof-of-concept — him being his own first customer — he chose a theme close to his heart, so that he would never feel any adversity to what he was doing because of the theme, even in the case of serious setbacks. As an experienced horseman and mounted cavalry reservist and sometimes escorting members of the Dutch Royal Family, he opted for cavalry as his first theme. He started with charcoal on paper, without using any digital tools. As the patron saint of cavalry is Saint George, he added the depiction of this legend, which includes a princess, a man named George and a dragon that likes princesses for dinner, as well as elements of traditional cavalry (swords, lances, uniforms, horses) and modern 26

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For the shagreen finish on the bespoke pen case Van der Mast developed a new finishing technique with Materialise

cavalry (tanks, regiments), all in 3D. He finally included two lines from an old French adage: “A nos Femmes, à nos Chevaux.” As he had decided to include sculpturing, he needed a sculptor and turned to animation software, in order to generate the type of free form shapes he had in mind. “I found a very talented digital sculptor in Moscow called Evgeny Bazurov, who knew all about handling software like 3DS Max, Houdini and Z-Brush. The materialisation of virtual geometries by additive manufacturing was new to him. His output had been solely to screen and include things like TV commercials. So I sometimes had to tell him that parts of his model could not be made, and corrections were swiftly effected.” Triangles Van der Mast expanded on some of the challenges associated with creating the unique geometries of the Cavalry pen: “In case you cannot copy the shapes that surround you by scanning, and you have no access to appropriate digital shapes instead, then you have to rely on software for creating them artificially. This takes time, like it takes a sculptor a lot of time to shape a stone. There is, however, one significant difference: there is no undo button on the stone. But there are various tools to facilitate the task of virtual sculpting. “Since I needed the geometry in Rhino, we had to export the data in a generative format; the .OBJ format, which not only cuts away all connections with the tools we had applied, but also produced much larger files of over a couple of hundred MBs up to 2 GBs.” In the end, the part including the princess consisted of millions of triangles.” He used Materialise’s Magics and VisCAM to reduce this number and to manually handle some minor geometrical improvements. Both could deal with the amount of data very well, including their routines for improving the quality of the 3D data. Reducing the number of triangles by replacing numer-ous small ones by a smaller number of large ones wherever possible does hold a serious risk: when morphing segments of the surface — sometimes one needs to do so at a very late stage in the process — those large triangles may become individually visible.

Titanium “Of course by then I had already decided what production method and material I would use: selective laser melting and titanium, because of its weight and strength. LayerWise and Materialise, a successful spin-off of the university of Leuven, Belgium, would assist me. I would add enamel to the titanium parts so these would include colours. Tests showed us that filling tiny engravings with enamel is certainly possible, although it costs a lot of time to correctly fill them. As you probably know, enamel has to be applied in an oven. Titanium does not like such an aggressive environment and comes out blackened. Enamel can be very bright, even sparkling, but in general that does not compensate for the time it takes to apply it.” He subsequently switched to another pretty hard material. “A little less sparkling, but much easier to apply!” Van der Mast: “As I was used to laser sintering in PA12, I wanted to see if with laser melting I could print an assembly of all parts at once, including hinges. But I had underestimated what melting titanium powder does on top of unmelted powder. It sinks! It is quite difficult to remove such a support structure from inside a tiny hinge, situated in the small space between the hole and the axis. So nothing rotated in the resulting pieces, not a single thing!” He finally had to conclude that a lot relates to the applied scanning method. It would be better to combine multiple methods within the same print job and have it automatically selected, based on what part of the geometry’s surface needs to be ’materialised’, even multiple methods within the same layer, if required. The print direction has significant effects on faces and edges, as well as on temperature related deformations. “One must carefully consider all of these effects when designing such geome-tries.” Surface “I had to come up with an alternative for the printed hinges that came out of the machine and which were completely stuck. In the case of the tiny spring used for holding the cap on the other end of the pen whilst writing, I created a little press for deforming a piece of steel wire. LayerWise printed this press, and it works

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[Metals in AM] perfectly.” For connecting the clip to the cap with an axis and a spring inside the cap, Van der Mast designed a part that is printed using stereolithography. Van der Mast: “This part is inside and holds the axis. It does not leave scratch-es on the polished parts covered by the cap, instead of having to use some kind of solution with titanium sliding over titanium.” The titanium surface proved to be very hard to flatten. Van der Mast: “Tiny sculptured faces are particularly hard to polish accurately. Because of the applied scanning method, individual layers were quite visible. So I had to find an effective method for eliminating this problem. Someone I knew at TNO advised me to call Robbert de Greef, owner of Innplate.” Innplate’s business lies in adding precious metals to surfaces, as well as polishing objects with chemical and galvanic processes. Together, they found various new and potentially robust methods for flattening printed metal surfaces, but these all turned out to be insufficient for dealing with the titanium parts due to the applied scanning method. As he was experienced in injection moulding, he decided to manually fix the surface, using methods that are commonly applied for pre-hardened steel moulds. After polishing, some parts were glass bead blasted. Pen case For the case, Van der Mast came up with a cavalry-related shape, the first theme: the giberne, close to its actual size. It is a silver attribute of today’s ceremonial cavalry uniform. “For the inner part, I turned to rapid tooling. Materialise provided me with a negative, which I used to build a mould.” He treated this mould with a release agent and filled it with silicon rubber, after adding pigments and hardener, and removing all air. Van der Mast applied a manifold hinge of 16 parallel sword blades and combined the box, the hinge and the cover into a single 3D print. “The most thrilling aspect related to the box,” he continued, “was however not the hinge, but its surface finish. After my experience with the surface of the titanium parts, I did not want to spend a lot of time on that. So I needed a texture to mask all laser sintering related

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Above: Even the tooling needed for the springs was AM Below Left: the intricate dragon structure with added colour Below right: The sleeping princess now has no legs, you’d never know!

roughness. In cavalry, there is only one appropriate texture: shagreen, made of the skin of the stingray, a fish closely related to the shark.” He ran various tests with Materialise and found a new way of surface finishing. Pjotr pens start at €7,000.00, depending on the complexity of the design and additional materials applied, like precious stones. Van der Mast: “In this concept, the customer decides what his or her design should look like. Or better even, the customer can tell me exactly what he wishes. With his preferences, l can demonstrate how the theme can best be depicted, also considering the budget, and if he agrees, it can be made.” Explaining the scope of the concept, Van der Mast explained: “Perhaps one has no connection with cavalry whatsoever. Well, that is part of the concept. Pjotr pens are either unique or one of a small series, with at least one significantly differing element.” Conclusion Was it worth many hundreds of unpaid hours? Van der Mast concludes: “It most certainly was! I have come up with a pretty significant proof of concept, for which I am grateful to the people who have contributed. If I have to rebuild it, the

result will surely be even better, as a direct result of all the lessons learned. I will start producing these pens very soon and sell them worldwide. I admit that this project was driven by a technology push, rather than a market pull. I believe this to be the only way, with so many new elements in one product. I have found some new ideas and methods and have acquired a tremendous amount of knowledge. It is now time to capitalise on this!” Pjotr is a trademark of SOLide (a consultancy and research organisation dedicated to customisation and additive manufacturing including on-demand part and spare part production) and covers its activities related to producing high quality fountain pens using digital sculpting and 3D printing. Rein would like to thank the following people: n Bart Van der Schueren, Materialise, Leuven (B) n Staf Wuyts, Materialise, Leuven (B) n Marc Duhayon, Materialise, Leuven (B) n Jonas Van Vaerenbergh, LayerWise, Leuven (B) n Wilfried Van der Perre, LayerWise, Leuven (B) n Robbert de Greef, Innplate, Geldrop (NL) n Christine van der Ree, Amsterdam (NL) n Paul Rutte, P.W. Akkerman, Den Haag (NL) ... and last but certainly not least: n Evgeny Bazurov, Moscow (RUS) n his girlfriend Ellen van ’t Zelfde, for her patience (NL)

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[through the doors]

THROUGH THE DOORS AT...

3T RPD WORDS | JIM WOODCOCK

s the snow fell silently across the UK in January I looked pensively at my diary. In the middle of the month was a 3-hour trek down the motorways of England — not something to be relished in even the most helpful weather. The Gods were kind to me however, and the worst of the weather held off affording me safe passage to the heart of Berkshire. I was heading to something of a historic destination; the site of the former Royal Air Force and US Air Force base, Greenham Common. Opened in 1942 the air base was active throughout World War II and during the Cold War — being closed in 1993. Greenham Common played an important part in the D-Day operations and was visited by Dwight D. Eisenhower who came to watch the preparations. In the event, some 81 overloaded aircraft left the runway at Greenham Common in just 15 minutes. When the air base was no longer needed it was acquired by the Greenham Common Trust with the aim of ensuring that the land was not lost to the community through piecemeal regeneration schemes. The trust reopened much of the land to the public, while also undertaking to redevelop the hangars and Air Force buildings into Greenham Business Park. It was within this maze of buildings that the old and the new sit next to each other not as uneasy companions, but as reminders of the ingenuity of mankind. The company I was here to see, 3T RPD, occupy a large unit at the heart of the park in which around 40 staff work on plastics and metals additive manufacturing and the associated processes. Established in 1999, 3T has become the largest supplier of plastics AM (through selective laser sintering) in the UK, supplying a reported 50% of the UK market. Currently the split between plastics and metals capacity is 2:1, however it was the metals machines that I was most keen to see.

3T’s Metals Systems 2 x EOS M270 running Argon 1 x EOS M270 running Nitrogen n and Nitrogen 2 x EOS M280 400w running Argo

3T runs EOS systems almost exclusively across both its plastics and metals machines. I asked Ian Halliday, CEO at 3T RPD, why this was: “We believe that currently EOS are at the top of the game when it comes to these systems. We are always looking at the competition in terms of other suppliers and other technologies, but at the moment we are happy with EOS.” As we make our way into the metals section of the facility we’re greeted by the first two EOS machines, one of which is shrouded in secrecy sporting a ‘3T RPD: CONFIDENTIAL’ poster across the viewing window into the build chamber. This particular machine is an EOS M270 building in Maraging steel in a Nitrogen atmosphere. Ian explained: “This particular machine has been running the same part, for the same customer, for over 12 months. Unfortunately we can’t give any more information than that at this stage!” While the inevitable non-disclosure issues that occur with technology at this level are irritating, it was interesting to see a company that is not just running one off parts or the occasional design iteration, but actually manufacturing. Ian explained: “The move from prototyping quality control to manufacturing quality control was a game change for us. Running the same part for 12 months is one of the ways we can fine-tune our production abilities.” When I asked Ian about how easy it is to use AM as a true manufacturing technology, he explained that although the machine technology played a large part — especially in the creation of otherwise impossible geometries — it was the part selection, preparation, build setup, process control and finishing that had a huge effect on whether the final part is fit for purpose. In terms of the build setup, there are ‘tricks of the trade’ that each company and even each machine operator employs, most learned from hours of trial and error with both real and test parts. During my visit 3T were running the same test part on one M280 and two M270s so that the builds could be calibrated to get the same standard of part off any of the machines in a repeatable manner. Ian elucidated on the process: “We have one sigma black belt and two green belts within the company (see sidebar 2 for details) which means we have exceptionally strong statistical analysis of our manufacturing process. We believe this is the only reliable method for dealing with a process that has so many sources of potential variability.”

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[through the doors]

SIDEBAR 2 WHAT IS SIX SIGMA? n Six Sigma is a set of tools and strategies for process improvement originally developed by Motorola in 1986. n Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimising variability in manufacturing and business processes. n It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organisation (“Champions”, “Black Belts”, “Green Belts”, “Orange Belts”, etc.) who are experts in these very complex methods

Later in the day I had chance to quiz some of the team about some of the specific industries they are involved in. I was particularly interested in their take on the medical industry. Speaking with Phil Kilburn, Sales Manager — Metals, I discovered that the company’s predictions did not meet the realities of the industry: “We saw medical applications as one of the major growth areas for additive manufacturing but a number of issues have stopped this developing at the rate we anticipated. We see companies becoming more sensitive to litigation following some high-profile issues in the US market. Likewise the major players are tending to take projects back in house — no doubt these projects are still going on but it is less common to have sight of them as a service provider. However, the aerospace sector has accelerated faster than we expected.”

SIDEBAR 3 PROPERTIES OF PA12 n Minimal water absorption: moulded parts show almost no dimensional changes with variation in atmospheric humidity. n Extraordinarily high impact resistance and Charpy notched impact strength, even well below freezing point. n Good to excellent resistance to greases, oils, fuels, hydraulic fluids, and many solvents as well as to salt solutions and other chemicals. n Excellent resistance to stress cracking, even for metal parts encapsulated by injection moulding or embedded into the plastic. n Excellent abrasion resistance. n Low dry sliding friction coefficient as compared with steel, polybutylene terephthalate, polyacetal, and other materials. n Noise and vibration damping properties. n Excellent resistance to fatigue caused by frequent load change. n Easy processability. *information courtesy Evonik Industries

This inequality between the metals and polymers materials development is easy to see within the offerings of 3T itself, with seven metals and alloys available (Aluminium {AlSi10Mg}, Cobalt Chrome Alloy {Co28Cr6Mo}, Nickel Alloy {In718}, Maraging Steel {1.2709}, 316L Stainless Steel, 15-5PH Stainless Steel, Titanium Alloy {Ti6Al4V}) versus just two for plastics (PA12 and glass-filled PA12).

In terms of materials I was able to speak with Mark Beard, formerly of The University of Exeter. As 3T are active in both metals and plastics they have a good understanding of the developments in both areas. In terms of metals Mark’s opinion was that current offerings covered the majority of current applications and those of the immediate future. In terms of plastics Mark explained: “There is certainly more room for more developments here. One of the main problems here has been the prevalence of a single polymer in the form of PA12. This polyamide has such a wide and useful range of properties (see sidebar 3 for details) that developing new materials for AM processes hasn’t been a priority.”

Future developments: With new machines being added to the line up all the time, 3T are set for continued growth. Since my visit another EOS M280 has just been installed upstairs (I asked how one gets a behemoth AM machine installed upstairs — answer: don’t ask!) furthering the company’s metal portfolio. Equally importantly the company has been updating and upgrading its plastics machinery to the latest versions as Ian explained: “In a dynamic industry like this, technology develops rapidly and we continually update our inventory to make sure we can make the most of the technological advances.”

3T RPD www.3trpd.co.uk

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A ‘How To’ Guide For Getting On TV and In The Papers With Your 3D Printing ‘News’; aka “We Can Now 3D Print in Cranberry Sauce”

s you may have noticed the hype and attention around 3D printing is at an unprecedented high at the moment. Many TV and radio programmes, national print media and Internet media have reported on 3D printing for the first time. The volume of news stories has increased by more than a factor of ten compared to just two years ago. After years of excitement building in the press, the Economist’s cover article on the technology seems to have kicked off a high-level of interest. There are three very important things to realise: this is temporary; this is a huge opportunity that your organisation or company has to take advantage of; and the media does not know the business-to-business part of our industry exists. We are currently ascending the Gartner Hype cycle quite rapidly. Many major news outlets such as the multiple global BBC outlets and most major worldwide papers such as the Times(es), Wall Street Journal and similar have reported on the technology — sometimes repeatedly. Some papers missed it the first time round and that’s partially why the “3D printed gun” story is receiving such a high level of attention. It’s a way for the media to write about the technology without making it glaringly obvious that they are months behind their journalistic colleagues. The media will pick one company, one AM process and one product to explain the technology to the public, and this could be you. This is no ordinary moment in the sun either; by framing the discussion and becoming an example of the technology you have a chance for people to know the industry through you and can be inserted in subsequent news stories. Don’t underestimate the value of this; Amazon’s success was partially brought about by many millions of dollars in free publicity since it was used as an example of an Internet business by journalists wanting to explain the impact the Internet would have. The problem is that the mainstream media does not know you exist. TCT Live? RAPID? All those gründliche Germans tucked away in the countryside with their SLS & SLM machines; the work being done for the car manufacturers; the vast array of prototyping being done, the hearing aids, titanium implants, low volume manufacturing, the many researchers worldwide, all the service bureaus etc. They don’t know that they exist. They think that this is a technology that was invented a number of weeks ago by some hipsters working from their garage. “Chuck who? Is that Crumb, as in cookie?” Part of the reason they don’t know is laziness and another part is that it does not fit into their narrative. The mass media’s story goes like this: ‘3D printing is an amazing technology and soon everyone will make everything using 3D printers on their desktop. Behold I have in my hand object X, this is the future and is an example and proof that this revolution is happening right now.’ This is the story they want to tell because this is a tech story that is relevant to people. It is also the story being sold by many of the people that are most successful in generating PR for themselves. The alternative story is: ‘3D printing is a bunch of technologies, some invented decades ago, that have been used all over the world for years by thousands of people for many applications. This technology is still too slow and too expensive for many consumer applications, is fraught with challenges and the surface quality and look of things is way too crappy for many consumers but still it may be used by a certain group of consumers at some point to do some things.’ 33

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[Media]

Well, that’s not a good story is it? All the ambiguity, all the uncertainties. And most of all it doesn’t answer the question: “Why is this relevant now?” It also makes the journalist look like a dolt for not reporting on this years ago. That won’t do. Journalists in this manner don’t see or think past the desktop. Although reporting on the business-to-business side of things is growing, often this is seen as a sideline and a prelude for desktop 3D printing rather than anything interesting in and of itself. A lot of it is your fault. Many companies in the industry see marketing as a department that makes coffee for other departments. Interaction is limited to asking them to hand out complementary Euromold tickets. Companies are mainly sales and relationship focused and because they have developed a name within the industry, which is easy to do, marketing is seen as something that is nice to have — like ISO, eyewash stations or HR, just not as important. Also, existing players are generally too modest. You’ve been managing expectations for years and success has been found in reducing enthusiasm and then delivering on what is possible. The mainstream media are like bright-eyed bushy-tailed children who enthusiastically say things like, “in five years everyone will have a flying car.” The media are often put off by qualifying statements, clarifications and complex explanations. Time and time again when I talk to people in the industry they complain: “Did you see this interview... this was incorrect” or “It made it look like they invented SLS!” Well, whose fault is that? Is that the fault of some enthusiastic youngling who has not been in this industry long enough to be disillusioned by the gap between 3D printing promise and 3D printing reality? A youngling who is VC funded or burning through the last of his cash and needs the attention? No, it’s your fault. Because you didn’t pick up the phone. You didn’t call the paper. You didn’t approach the magazine… You didn’t show anything terribly interesting to the press this year, you don’t have a press kit or press contact (and if you have a press contact, they’re probably utterly clueless — Ed), you don’t have images on your site, you don’t explain what you’re doing. What do you expect? If you are tired of incorrect information appearing in the media, then do something about it. If you don’t do this now the chance to set the record straight will not reoccur. This is a one-time deal and the clock is ticking. Worse still, if they’ve found a number of story lines, a number of products, a number of “experts”, a number of companies they follow then the media will keep to referencing those and rarely venture out of them. If you don’t get off your ass and go get some press we will all have to live with the fact that our industry will be an iceberg with only the consumer 3D printing part visible to the world. As for those who think that mainstream press is not relevant because it is only industry press that matters, I’d like to remind you that decision makers are consumers too, and it is very likely that that one nice gentleman at Daimler who reads TCT is also watching the evening news. With regards to new people entering the industry it is crucial that they know you exist. To that end a short guide to getting your story in the media. The media likes things that are easy to understand, easy to show, easy to explain, are exciting, are relevant and are “happening now.” Each story or TV piece is continually answering one central question, “Why should the person reading or watching this, be reading or watching this.”

General Tips n Approach media in an open and honest way. Find out what they are interested in and why they are not interested in you right now. n You are probably way too modest. The things your company does are amazing to many people, much more so than the majority of stories that get pitched to them. n Go local. For an update or story about you local media are a great starting point and often devote more resources and give you more screen time. This can serve as a bedrock for later engagements. n Tell them the story of your company and how it came about — often media will be amazed that 3D printing is happening in their neck of the woods. This is reinforced by service and machine companies having a predilection for being in the middle of nowhere. n Make good images of the things you make. Local photographers are dirt cheap right now and light boxes are easily purchased for under a 100 Euro. There is no excuse for crappy photos or not having many photographs on your site. n Be available for background information and explain the technology to media. n Except for Live TV there are no points given for quick answers. n Take your time and try to be concise, clear and stay away from technical terms when explaining things. n Once a high-level explanation of the technology is given you can throw in some technical terms whilst explaining them. This is ammunition for the reporter to quickly be able to convey a semblance of understanding to their audience. n Logical stories and narratives that explain the How and Why of an event well, do well. n On TV don’t wear stripes. n You are being interviewed, not some fake you. Stay true to yourself. n You can probably imagine most of the questions already. Rehearse some answers and make sure that the explanation of your product, proposition, company and news event are well rooted in your mind. As for the rest of the stuff, wing it. Don’t worry. As long as you can explain those core things well, the rest is window dressing and more about people engaging with your enthusiasm, understanding, knowledge or you as a person. n If you are not calm, a deep in and out breath is enough to become calm. n Short sentences and short explanations are best. Say enough for people to understand what you are doing. Straying from a subject might be confusing. Practical examples work well. n Jokes and wit often do not work as well as you thought they would and might offend. n Remember that you are in a conversation and pay close attention to the person you are talking to just like you would a friend or colleague. n Try not to fidget with your hands or put them in your pockets. Holding a 3D print is a wonderful way to keep them busy. n It is completely OK to not know something, just get back to them later with the right answer.

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n If you were the reporter, what would you want to know? What would make you understand? Empathy is key. n The reporter is your ally. You are both trying to get an nice story out of your time together. If you align your goals and are clear beforehand about what you want to convey and what the reporter wants then you can both be successful. n Especially for TV feel free to ask the reporter for tips and advice on how to do the interview. n Make a personalised 3D printed product for the reporter, newspaper or show or have them design something on site. This will help them understand the technology as well as make it more relevant to them. It will also be a nice visual. Some reporters are unable to accept gifts so ask what is possible beforehand. Narratives to tie in with What reporters generally want right now is for you to say that this technology will change the world and soon everyone will 3D print everything. A dose of realism is a good thing to administer. It would be wonderful if more people focused on what was possible right now and how amazing the industry and the products are right now. If you’re having trouble garnering attention it is best to attach your story to a broader one. There are a number of key narratives and ideas that your product or business will probably fall into, you can use them to interest media in you or use them during the engagement. n Europe and the US do not do any manufacturing anymore. n Europe and the US are falling behind in engineering, R&D, manufacturing and innovation. n The recession is terrible and leading to low employment especially for blue collar employees. n China will move up the value chain and endanger European/American manufacturing. n Mass manufactured cheap things from China and the uncertainties surrounding them in their environmental, labour conditions and health risks pose a problem for the world. n CO2 is bad and local manufacturing will be advantageous for the environment. n With 3D printing lower weight, lower volume and more specialised things will be a boon for the environment. n People increasingly want to customise their lives and products. n 3D printed goods provide for better solutions to real world problems than mass manufactured things. n Innovation and product development can be accelerated by 3D printing. n With 3D planning and 3D printed implants, guides and body parts 3D printing can have significant impacts on healthcare. n 3D printing can lower barriers to entry and let designers and other individuals compete globally. n Global instability will cause disruption to technology and raw material supply chains. n 3D printing will let you recycle your own things or upcycle existing technologies. n 3D printing will let people design what they want. n 3D printing will let people give meaningful customised gifts. n 3D printing is happening right now here in....Watford, Milan, Bulgaria, Catalonia etc.

Interest It would have been easier a few months ago when many media outlets had not written about 3D printing. But, now it’s still doable to get attention for yourself. Do you have an innovation of some sort? Tie it to a real world problem, give clear examples and show how your innovation would solve that problem. Make it relevant by tying it to people’s lives, showing a 3D printed thing and tying it to wherever you are located. Don’t have an innovation? No problem. Spend some time online searching for 3D printed things. Find a thing that has not been 3D printed yet, make it and release this as news. Weird is good, strange is good, funny is good, large is good, metal is good, useful is good, cutting edge is good and piggy backing on news events and hypes is good. Local is also great. If your city is into basket weaving make a basket. Functional objects are also good as is anything that can not be made on a home printer. Most media and consumers do not know metal 3D printing exists so you could get a lot of mileage out of that. Things that show the capability of the technology work especially well. So, a keychain designed to someone’s DNA, a pair of glasses built to their Facebook profile or favorite song, a golf club grip designed on a 3D scan of someone’s hand etc. Don’t want to 3D model? Invent a 3D printing process instead. ‘Local area man invents 3D printing in chocolate’ will probably still work for every major metro area worldwide. Seriously, try it. Grab an old FDM machine and keep gunking it up until you see something that kind of works build. Recycled materials are wonderful as is a common material re-purposed. I’m pretty sure that cranberry sauce won’t work but feel free to surprise us all. You can also get many powders to print on a Z Corp machine so this might be a fun thing to try. Your city the marble capital of Italy? 3D print in marble. Have an old LOM machine lying about that stubbornly refuses to catch fire? Recycle the local newspaper and turn it into build material. Catnip for journalists. SLS is more difficult. “Boss, Hans says he won’t service the machine because he thinks it smells like caramel...” Another path is to make a dream come true by working with some inspirational designer or slightly deluded dreamer to make a truly inspiring thing that is unique. Working with local art and design schools can also get you wonderful objects that you can pitch to journalists. All of these things will work for service bureaus, machine manufacturers and also software vendors in the space. I really do believe that you should do more to promote your business to the media. I think we need to redress the balance in this market and show the world what is being made using 3D printers right now. We need to change the focus of media to what is possible with current technology rather than have them dream of futures that may never occur. Joris Peels is a consultant to the 3D printing industry specialising in business development, strategy, marketing, online and community management. You can read his blog on http://voxelfab.com/blog/

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M in medical applications remains one of the hottest topics around, with our sister publication Medical Plastics News mining a rich vein for its readership. There is perhaps a degree more scepticism from AM industry insiders about the current market and its growth potential, however. There is no doubt that there are a number of research-led institutions (such as Sirris in Belgium) having significant success with AM in medicine at the moment and one-off case studies are reasonably frequent. In the commercial space things are reportedly not quite so rosy. A number of companies I have spoken to recently have bemoaned the risk-averse (understandably risk-averse) nature of the medical industry and the lack of widespread adoption of the technologies. A number of lawsuits filed in the US last year, even when AM was not a player, have seen many of the big medical companies take development back in house. Closer to home, the NHS is often touted as a significant hurdle to adoption of new techniques and technologies. While a number of committees and working groups aim to get the best treatments for the cost it tends to be the ‘cost’ element that neccesarily comes first. Operating in an effective monopoly — however well-meaning — will produce a bottleneck. The case studies in this issue concentrate on how AM is having an impact upstream and downstream of the surgeon’s knife. The use of Solidscape’s 3D printing technology in the treatment of cerebral aneurysm shows how AM technology can improve patient outcomes without being used in the physical treatment. The combination of CT scanning and 3D printing offers a powerful tool for visualisation and surgical planning that can make surgery more accurate, faster and as a result safer.

The Stratasys study demonstrates the unexpected benefits of AM technology in medical treatments. While the same outcome could have easily been achieved using another manufacturing technology the flexibility of AM to create bespoke one-off products has allowed a treatment that is tailored to the individual. As the individual in case is a young girl the ability to create new, tailored solutions to accommodate continuing growth will certainly prove a huge benefit. In the metals arena the same acetabular cups, implants and cranial plates are still being produced — though here the rate of uptake seems to have somewhat stagnated. Speaking off the record to one company insider it appears that while smaller companies are more willing to invest in at least trialling AM in a number of areas, the big companies are more reticent. It is the large companies that control the market and produce the most parts for the most procedures.

[Medical]

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While this stifles the immediate scope of AM in medical applications, it also forces AM machine manufacturers to up their game and work towards even better processes. In early February a PEKK medical device was granted FDA 510(k) clearance. Oxford Performance Materials’ OsteoFab brand of AM implant parts are one-off implants and is reportedly well suited to cranial implants — and area currently populated by Titanium alloys. The PEKK implants have the benefit of being ‘radiolucent’, meaning they do not interfere with X-ray equipmemt. The material has many potential applications across the orthopaedic surgery.

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Solidscape www.solid-scape.com

Customer Profile The Image Processing Applications Laboratory (IPALab) at Arizona State University addresses current and important image processing problems in a variety of different fields. Ongoing research at IPALab includes projects that are biomedical, industrial, and military in nature. The ultimate goal is to improve human quality of life through the development and use of advanced image processing. www.ipalab.fulton.asu.edu

3D Printing Advances Cerebral Aneurysm Research The numbers are stark: Cerebral aneurysms affect 1 in 50 people and contribute to nearly 20,000 deaths in the USA alone every year. If an aneurysmal sac ruptures in the brain it becomes a highly lethal condition with a 50% mortality rate per rupture.

VIDEO: Watch the process in action on YouTube: http://mytct.co/11FPxxh

rizona State University hosts one of the leading programmes in cerebral aneurysm research with funding provided in part by the Mayo Clinic and National Science Foundation, among others. ASU’s research findings are directly applied at participating hospital partners and in the design of improved endovascular medical devices. “The Solidscape machine is the heart, backbone of our process. We use that to build the core blood vessel models that we then translate into transparent flow models for our experiments,” according to Dr. David Frakes. “The end product of our physical 3D modelling stage is a transparent block wherein there is a lost-core or a hollow portion of the model that is an exact replica of a cerebral aneurysm from a person. Rapid prototyping is how we get that first positive, before we get the negative, which is the flow model,” explains Dr. Frakes. “All of the ground-truth data that is informing our simulations in the end, it comes from these models that the Solidscape machine helps us build.”

Solidscape System Specifications Printer: R66PLUS Software: ModelWorks Materials: n PlusCAST - Build n InduraFill – Support

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Magic Arms 3D Printed “Exoskeleton” Lets a Little Girl Lift Her Arms and Play

he moment Megan Lavelle saw the device, she knew it would change her daughter’s life. Lavelle is an energetic, unstoppable mother whose youngest daughter, Emma, was born with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita (AMC). At a Philadelphia conference for AMC families, Lavelle learned about the Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX), an assistive device made of hinged metal bars and resistance bands. It enables children with underdeveloped arms to play, feed themselves and hug. AMC is a non-progressive condition that causes stiff joints and very underdeveloped muscles. Emma was born with her legs folded up by her ears, her shoulders turned in. “She could only move her thumb,” explains Lavelle. Doctors immediately performed surgery and casted Emma’s legs. The baby girl went home with parents determined to provide the best care. Medical experts warned that AMC would prevent Emma from ever experiencing any sort of normality. She developed more slowly than an average child and spent much of her first two years in casts or undergoing surgery. Unable to see Emma play and interact with her environment in ways her older daughter had, Lavelle privately wondered whether Emma’s cognitive ability would be hampered as well. Determined to Grow But Emma progressed, slow and steady. As she grew and became able to move about with the help of a walker, it became clear that her mind was sharp and her determination on par with her mother’s. At two years old, she still couldn’t lift her arms. “She would get really frustrated when she couldn’t play with things like blocks,” Lavelle said. Then came the WREX, demonstrated at the conference by an 8-year-old AMC patient lifting his arms and moving them in all directions. Lavelle met with the presenters, Tariq Rahman, Ph.D, head of paediatric engineering and research, and Whitney Sample, research designer, both from Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware. Rahman and Sample had worked for years to make the device progressively smaller, serving younger and younger patients. Attached to a wheelchair, the WREX worked for children as young as six. But Emma was two, small for her age, and free to walk. i

In Sample’s tool-and-toy filled workshop, the team strapped Emma’s arms into a small but awkward trial WREX attached to a stationary support. “She just started throwing her hands around and playing,” Sample says. Megan brought Emma sweets and toys and watched her lift her arms toward her mouth for the first time. Tiny Rewards For Emma to wear the WREX outside the workshop, Rahman and Sample needed to scale it down in size and weight. The parts would be too small and detailed for the workshop’s CNC system to fabricate. But humming along near Sample’s desk was a Stratasys 3D Printer, so he 3D printed a prototype WREX in ABS plastic. The difference in weight allowed Sample to attach the Emma-sized WREX to a plastic vest. The 3D-printed WREX turned out to be durable enough for everyday use. Emma wears it at home, at preschool, and during occupational therapy. And the design flexibility of 3D printing lets Sample continually improve upon the assistive device, working out ideas in CAD and building them the same day. Fifteen children now use custom 3D-printed WREX devices. For these patients, Rahman explains, the benefits may extend beyond the obvious. Prolonged disuse of the arms can sometimes condition children to limited development, affecting cognitive and emotional growth. Doctors and therapists are watching Emma closely for the benefits of earlier arm use. Emma quickly grew to love the abilities WREX unlocked in her. “When she started to express herself, we would go upstairs [to Sample’s workshop] and we would say, ‘Emma, you know we’re going to put the WREX on.’ And she called them her magic arms,” Lavelle says. The little girl’s approval is a fitting reward for her determined mother and dedicated researchers. Sample says: “To be a part of that special moment for someone else, can’t help but tug at your heart strings.” , Learn more about Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children where the WREX was developed, at Nemours.org. VIDEO: http://bcove.me/vtsimckz

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The Ultimate Italian Job Located in an enviable position in Northern Italy just 100km west of Bologna and 25km south-west of Parma lies Fornovo di Taro, a small community on the bank of the Taro River. It is here that ProtoService began life back in 1997, not because of the region’s natural beauty but because this part of Italy is the home to the several industries that benefit from additive manufacturing, specifically ‘motor valley’.

ProtoService www.protoservice.it

The Company In the 16 years ProtoService has been in operation it has worked with, and gained the trust of, an enviable list of the most prestigious automotive companies. Like other companies that target the automotive world, ProtoService soon realised that they were operating at the very highest level — auto clients are renowned for demanding the very highest standards — and learning skills and techniques that could be adopted by other industries. This has facilitated the company’s expansion into areas such as medical and biomedical, industrial automation and design, and relationships with many major research institutions. The Tech The company currently has five plastics AM machines, three from EOS and two from 3D Systems. Running five plastic-based materials across the range gives the company the ability to make parts for aerodynamic testing, thermoplastic elastomer-like parts to USP Class VI biocompatible parts. The company also runs three EOS metal AM systems (an M270, M270 extended and an M280) on which it runs all major metals and alloys. In order to perform to the exacting standards required by motorsport and medical applications the company takes a holistic approach to parts production starting with STL verification and fixing through optimal build settings and position through to regular calibration and testing of the machines. Ensuring consistency of build is of paramount importance so the company is also adept at the finishing techniques that are often required for AM parts, such as polishing, heat treating and ‘HIP’ing. 44

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SLS Plastics Materials Offerings ProtoPlus Composition: Polyamide-based material. Application: Ideal product for the production of prototypes used for testing cosmetics and mounting evidence in various industries and designers. It can be used for medical or biocompatible in accordance with USP Class VI. ProtoGlass Composition: Polyamide-based material with glass fibre. Application: High temperature resistance and excellent mechanical strength. Prototech Composition: Polyamide-based material with aluminum charge. Application: Reproduction of detail and the surfaces of the parts can be improved by sanding, polishing or coating. The machinability makes it suitable for machining and CNC. Particularly used in the automotive field, for components of injection molds, for the production in small series of objects that need a metallic appearance. ProtoFiber Composition: polyamide based material with carbon fibre. Application: High mechanical performance for real function tests for fairings and accessories in the field of racing. The good surface finish makes it suitable for aerodynamic testing. PROTOFLEX Composition: Thermoplastic Elastomer, fully recyclable. Application: For the production of functional prototypes that require performance and physical characteristics similar to thermoplastic elastomers. Has a hardness and tear resistance, chemical resistance and heat resistance. PROTOFLEX is fully recyclable.

SLA Materials WaterClear Ultra 10122 Composition: Epoxy resin transparent. Application: Suitable for the production of parts requiring optical transparency, for example lenses, elements for the lighting, glass-like, analysis of the fluid flow, light tubes. NanoTool Composition: Epoxy resin reinforced ceramics. Application: Material for parts which require high resistance to heat, for example luminaires, under-hood applications, exhaust gas. The parts have a very smooth finish and can be treated with chrome, saving time and money as an alternative to metal prototypes.

Metals AM Materials StainlessSteel PH1 Composition: alloy stainless steel. Corresponds to the classification USA and European 17-4 1.4542. Application: A steel with good corrosion resistance, it is particularly ductile and treatable with techniques of precision turning, welding, polishing. Aluminum AlSi10Mg Composition: Aluminium alloy. Application: Good melting properties and used for the production of pieces with thin walls and complex geometries. The aluminum parts AlSi10Mg are ideal for applications requiring a combination of good thermal, mechanical and low weight. Titanium Ti64 Composition: Titanium alloy. Corresponding to ISO 5832-3, ASTM F1472 and ASTM B348. Application: Light alloy characterised by excellent mechanical properties and corrosion resistance with low specific weight and biocompatibility. CobaltChrome MP1 Composition: carbon CoCrMo alloy, nickel-free. Conforms to the chemical composition Uns R31538. Meets mechanical and chemical ISO 5832-4 and ASTM F75 CoCrMo alloys for casting. Application: Material characterised by excellent mechanical properties, resistance to corrosion and high temperatures.

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[through the doors] It’s not often that you get to take a tour around the 3D printing department of a 109-year-old company, but on a recent trip to Birmingham that’s exactly what happened. The company was John Burn and the 3D printing studio was just the latest in a long list of innovations that have seen this company through more recessions than I have had hot dinners...

THROUGH THE DOORS AT...

John Burn WORDS | JIM WOODCOCK

John Burn Ltd www.johnburn.co.uk

rom the road I have to admit that John Burn’s Stechford HQ looked a little… well, underwhelming. What I hadn’t realised is that pitch of the road and the angle of ascent conspire to hide most of the 20,000 square foot facility. Once inside the place opens up like a tardis with room after room leading to huge warehouse spaces behind. With each new room a new layer of the company was peeled back to reveal a rich history of manufacturing and engineering. From white metal lettering at the back of the building; through the traditional machining workshop with the swarf and oil one comes to expect; through to the leather filleting and fillet rubbers that the company has produced for over 100 years; into the vast warehouse space where the company’s materials operations are based; into the brand new 3D printing studio with it’s still-futuristic display of technology. Proof then that a company can embrace new technologies without letting go of the past — in the process building an enviable portfolio of technology and talent to boot. In fact, John Burn’s employees are amazingly loyal to the company, with plenty of staff having served well over 20 years with the firm. Something of a rarity these days — they must be doing something right! I met up with Brian Lang, MD, and Harry Curtis, 3D Printing Business Development for a tour of the facilities — with special interest in the 3D printing side of the business. Before we took at look at the studio, Harry explained how and why the company came to be involved in 3D printing: “John Burn has a long history but is perhaps most readily associated with the extensive materials business — indeed that is still a major part of what John Burn is about. 3D printing for us is the next logical step in that long history. “When we first became aware of 3D printing at the lower price points available today we knew it would be a game changer. We’ve all been involved in manufacturing for more years than we care to mention and we know a breakthrough when we see one, it’s how we have managed, as a company, to last so long.” The company’s first foray into the 3D printing marketplace was with Israel-based Solido. The Solido machines were a form of laminate object manufacturing (LOM) that used a roll of polymer stacked and cut to produce models. The resulting parts were very distinctive and for some applications still haven’t been surpassed. However, even before Solido ceased trading (although rumours of it’s resurrection surface as regularly as dolphins, so you never know…) John Burn were looking for another 3D printer to sell. Having seen Solido go south, the team decided to protect themselves from the sometimes fickle nature of the 3D printing industry. Their solution? To stock multiple lines from multiple suppliers — an obvious route not only to protect oneself from the vagaries of the corporate 3D printing world but also to offer the best possible service to clients. With so many processes and materials under the broad umbrella of 3D printing it’s hardly surprising that an independent could build a substantial portfolio of machines with only very limited competition between systems. Working to this theory the company opened their revamped 3D printing studio in late 2012, having signed up with EnvisionTEC to resell the Germany-based company’s range of 3D printers. With systems ranging from the £1500 UP! 3D printer to the £30k EnvisionTEC Ultra the 3D printing studio gives novices an at-a-glance overview of 3D printing in a way that makes jumping between systems easy. Harry explained: “Hopefully customers will be able to walk into the studio without any knowledge of 3D printing and leave understanding the principles of the different technologies, their strengths and weaknesses and how they could employ them in their business. If we believe they would be best served by an UP!, that’s what we will offer them — if they’re after something that could only be achived by the EnvisionTEC systems we would guide them towards that. “3D printing remains far from a one-hit solution and no one vendor — let alone one system — can hope to fulfil every niche from the designer’s desktop to the production floor. By cherry-picking our partners we hope to be able to offer exactly that.”

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View from the East WORDS | GRAHAM TROMANS, PRESIDENT, G P TROMANS ASSOCIATES

Graham Tromans took a trip to China at the end of 2012 to present at the th 6 Annual China Additive Manufacturing Conference — while there he took the opportunity to visit companies and research institutes aligned with AM.

y visit to present at the 6th Annual China Additive Manufacturing Conference that was supported by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, turned out to be a most enlightening and surprising visit. Arriving in Bejing I was met by a representative of the Longyuan Automated Fabrication Systems Ltd. The following day I visited the company’s facility in the Haldian District of Beijing. Longyuan Automated Fabrication Systems Ltd, which was founded in 1994, is an Additive Manufacturing machine manufacturer and service bureau, that supplies a large number of industries in China with casting patterns produced from its sand sintering/polystyrene process. The total number of systems sold amounts to 170 systems in 103 different companies, according to company figures. The company is very focused on the foundry industry, supplying polystyrene, wax and sand patterns. Its facility currently uses eight of its own machines: Four AFS500s, with a build area of 500 mm x 500 mm x 500 mm; three AFSLaserCores 5300 with a build area of 700 mm x 700 mm x 500 mm; and one LaserCore 5500 with a build area of 1400 mm x 700 mm x 500 mm. They also manufacture a metal sintering system, with two product ranges: the Diemetal 120, which has a build area of 120 mm3; and the Diemetal 250, with a build area of 250 mm3, although neither of these machines was available for me to see. While I was in Beijing I was also invited by Luo Jun, CEO of the Asian Manufacturing Association, to take part in an Additive Manufacturing forum on Saturday afternoon. As part of the 6th Annual Conference of Asian Manufacturing Forum a number of high-profile Chinese delegates were present including the Deputy Director General, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the Peoples Republic of China, the Vice President of the China Center for Information Industry Development, and the Commissioner Assistant Director Emerging Industries Department Director. This was recorded for a number Chinese television channels and had a large number of the Chinese media present. The following day I was invited to present as one of the keynote speakers at the 6th Annual Conference of Asian Manufacturing. The conference was attended by a number of dignitaries including the Vice Chairman Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference Regional committee and the Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Of The Peoples Republic of China, as well as a lot of industry/government leaders of China. The next day saw me moving on to Wuhan for the 6th Annual China Additive Manufacturing Conference. The following day I spent time at Huazhong University of Science and Technology with students, looking at discussing their work as post graduates, in the field of 3D scanning, in relationship to AM. Huazhong University have developed one of the largest sintering machines in the world with a build area of 1200 mm2, as well as other smaller systems.

The 6th China National Additive Manufacturing Conference which took place on the 13th–16th December 2012 in Wuhan was itself very interesting. My presentation which was titled “Global Applications of Additive Manufacturing” seemed very well received and generated a lot of discussion both during the conference and afterwards. Again there were a lot of high-ranking officials there, trying to gain knowledge on how AM will impact manufacturing in the coming years, and how the Chinese government should help and support the research into these technologies and in particular how to integrate them into industry. The day after the conference saw me travelling to Zhengzhou Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering. This was to present to a group of researchers, students and other members of staff. I was originally asked to present my “Global Applications of Additive Manufacturing” presentation which again generated a considerable discussion I the discussion period, but what really surprised me was the almost complete lack of knowledge regarding the technologies and how they worked. So to try and help with this I presented some of my technology briefing workshop to them in addition to my original presentation and although this resulted in a one hour presentation being extended to over 2 hours the audience seemed very keen to understand what the potentials were for them within their own research projects. The feedback I had from this was that the presentations had provoked a lot of thought in this area and hopefully would drive a new area of research within the institute. Conclusion Overall the information I got from the visit was very informative. At the conference Bo Su, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said that 3D printing will profoundly affect the future of the manufacturing industry in China, and he feels that China will strengthen and establish organisations and use tax incentives to speed up the development of the 3D printing technology. Already we are seeing a number of universities and research institutions moving forward in developing new systems, materials and applications. Industry analysis has shown that although China has only 8.6% of the installed systems worldwide, last year showed they had the largest growth in installed systems worldwide. My impression was that although in some areas more development was already taking place, China will ultimately become one of the largest and possibly the strongest countries in applying and developing AM technologies. With the formation of the new 3D Printing Technology Industry Alliance recently announced, and the planned advanced technology park, which will include a national 3D printing technology R&D centre and a demonstration centre for industry in China. They have the foresight into the impact these technologies could have on their economy and environment. www.gptromansassociates.com

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oftware bridges the gap between human invention and machine production in ever more complex ways. From collaboration at the concept creation stage to running an AM-based factory, ‘software’ is stepping up to meet the challenges of modern engineering and manufacturing. But what is ‘software’? It’s becoming harder to define what and where it is. Although it was never a physical thing, there were at least installation CDs and boxes to keep in drawers. We knew which version we were running. Now, with the cloud facilitating software-as-a-service, these boundaries are blurred. At Euromold I met up with Manfred van der Voort, a man with an interesting take on the future of design ‘software’. His ICR3ATE project aims to take everything to the cloud and distribute it in a platform-independent manner. The overview of the pre-beta deployment of this platform is on pages 54 and 55.

The emergence of software aimed specifically at businesses operating AM workflows is testament to the fact that additive technologies are gaining wider-spread acceptance. Materialise’s StreAMics solution aims to aid the management of AM-focussed facilities with a number of features that cater specifically to the workflows and processes inherent to additive manufacture. Likewise Asiga offers a solution dedicated for AM-centric bureaux services — in this issue we take a look as costing your additively manufactured parts to return the best margins while remaining competitive. The insight into the Asiga solution is good for bureaux but also for users of bureaux. By helping to identify what goes on behind the scenes users can better gauge and challenge their parts prices — regardless of the bureaux back-office methodology — as well as gain an important insight into how bureaux services work.

[Software]

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In the same vein, PTC demonstrates how a holistic, productcentric approach to the design, development and manufacturing processes are key to winning an advantage in today’s hypercompetitive marketplace.

Who is responsible for the healing software?

he truth is that in the world of additive manufacturing, unless your 3D model is clean and watertight you will not be able to make the part. Whether you are the end user operating 3D printers or the manufacturer making 3D printers, you don’t want to know how your software works, you just want it to generate watertight models ready for printing, quietly and cleverly in the background.

Polygonica is unique because of its background. The Boolean engine behind Polygonica was first developed to provide real-time machining simulation, graphics and collision detection in the CAM market. Hence, it has got 18 years of testing and demanding optimisation in leading applications. This is how Polygonica can repair a complex model of 3 million triangles such as this cantilever in less than 3 minutes.

Unfortunately the reality in the 3D printing industry is that most people are fending for themselves, often having to use more than one software package to overcome problems with solid models. Users find defective STLs with self-intersecting triangles, noise shells and holes. Users have then to simplify the geometry to a number of triangles that makes it manageable for a CAD package to further manipulate the model.

Video http://bit.ly/14CrfTt

There is not a magic answer but there is one undeniable fact, the end customer does not want to be responsible for the healing software. They will take on that responsibility if they have no choice but will happily buy a printer that can avoid that problem. The question is, are hardware manufacturers willing to take on this responsibility? At MachineWorks, we believe that additive manufacturing companies are missing out on an opportunity to differentiate themselves if they don’t. That’s why we have our Boolean algorithms to create an OEM software solution, Polygonica, that automatically deals with the polygon data challenges, accurately and faithfully reproducing the intended geometry in a print-ready format.

Integrating Polygonica within 3D printing, rapid prototyping and Additive Manufacturing will allow to automatically output watertight models ready for manufacturing and end customers won’t have to worry about healing software anymore. i

MachineWorks www.polygonica.com

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[Software]

Reconstructing the legendary

Honda CB 900 I

n 2009 Raimondo Berger founded RTCNC, focusing on his passion: forward controls, yokes and other precision parts for motorcycles. The exceptional “technical” appearance of Berger forward controls are characterised by their elaborate and sophisticated design and high-quality manufacturing. Although the difference in weight compared to the mass market is usually only slight, riders equipped with a Berger part enjoy several improved features that help when riding a sport motorcycle. 3D Design Without a Manual As Berger himself explained: “I thought about developing sophisticated products such as footrests in 3D for many years, but was deterred by the high cost. A colleague from production who is always on the lookout for inexpensive 3D systems that can be used without a manual introduced me to SpaceClaim.” Since Berger liked the system’s look, feel and price, he then decided to attend a one-day training at German SpaceClaim reseller Lino in the summer of 2011. “I was persuaded by the fact that I could open my extensive and sometimes old DXF files easily, put them together, and build a 3D model,” he explained. He was also determined to put the performance and skills of the Lino staff to the test and proposed working with one of his most complex DXF drawings. However, loading, editing and design of the 3D model went perfectly with the support of Lino professionals. “Everything else I’ve done since then with SpaceClaim I’ve accomplished simply by doing it because the user interface is so intuitive.” Berger, who has worked with many 3D CAD systems, also praised the immediacy of the software: “What I can handle in SpaceClaim in five steps would take me ten steps in a traditional CAD system,” He declared. The first 3D part Berger designed in SpaceClaim was based on an existing DXF file. This part with complex geometry stiffens the motorcycle front end, saves weight, provides a more comfortable seating position and can be mounted within 30 minutes. “It is simply impossible to explain the structure of the triple clamp just based on a DXF file,” says Berger. Kit for Design Parts Berger then built a 3D-parts kit from a wide variety of parts. To create a new forward control for example, he first works out the basic design

g expert and lover of Raimondo Berger, designer, manufacturin They design and build sport motorcycles, heads the firm RT-CNC. parts for sport forward controls, yokes and other precision the criteria “light, stable, motorcycles of various brands that meet as 3D tool to rapidly precise.” SpaceClaim Engineer serves him the production stage give shape to ideas and develop them to ng even to reconstruct with minimal inconvenience. Berger is dari er Sport from 1979... the legendary Honda CB 900 Bol d’Or Sup in connection with the bike frame (the mounting points vary constantly from manufacturer to manufacturer and from model to model), then pulls the other components from his kit and builds up the final part. “If you build a model from external data in another 3D system, it is only a dumb model. In SpaceClaim you instantly have a real model that you can continue working on directly, either on the constructive side, or in the production pipeline.” The production partner then creates the 5-axis programming from the 3D STEP and IGES data supplied by Berger. Based on his many years of manufacturing experience, Berger drafts his designer pieces so that they can be produced with a minimum of fixtures and clamping. Design Features Proven in Day-to-Day Design Work For the design of the complicated geometry of the footrest, Berger appreciates how he can easily and intuitively execute design changes like the addition of a brake cylinder or various changes in form such as slants, angles, and the changing line of a chamfer along a support and thus “cast” his ideas in a solid form. His response to the four command buttons ‘Pull, Move, Fill, Combine’? “Absolutely great.” In the design of free-form surfaces, the direct interface between SpaceClaim and the 3D free-form modeling tool Rhino is extremely useful, allowing him to open Rhino files directly in SpaceClaim, edit and then re-send them in their native format to Rhino. In addition, SpaceClaim includes free-form surface features as well. Reconstruction of the Honda CB 900 Bol d’Or Super Sport In 2013, Berger will present his most ambitious project at at a trade show: the reconstruction of the sport motorcycle Honda CB 900 Bol d’Or Super Sport from 1979. The Bol d’Or (French for “golden bowl”) is in fact one of the most famous 24-hour motorcycle races. Throughout 2012 Berger worked to reconstruct the bike completely in 3D using SpaceClaim and then have it manufactured by contract fabricators. The goal is to completely map the bike in 3D — of course with its own crown and footrest controls. Berger probably wouldn’t tackle this project with another 3D system: “This is the first 3D system with which I can work professionally and with minimum inconvenience. Its greatest advantage is its ease of use.”

About RT-CNC RT-CNC in Höchberg, near Würzburg, Germany develops precision parts for sport bikes, especially forward controls, triple trees, accessories and special products. RT-CNC footrests have proved themselves on the racetracks of Europe over many years.

SpaceClaim www.spaceclaim.com

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Design, collaborate and make in the Cloud

Perhaps the best way to understand the ICR3ATE platform is to look at the problems that it is setting out to solve. In a nutshell it aims to be an accessible, secure and safe online platform that covers the concept creation, 3D design, global collaboration and flexible production of things. A huge undertaking then, but one that could revolutionise the way we think about the entire design, development and production process. See Sidebar 1.

in 3D Design Perceived Business Problems tible file formats, resulting in mpa inco often and n 130 different gners inefficient collaboration for 3D desi a 3D co-design process across ort supp n’t does CAD al ition n Trad organisational borders y open and promising web n Without exception they don’t appl standards (WebGL, HTML5) n Some invested in Flash… ce files lacks IP security, leading n Current sharing of 3D model sour resulting in release and change to 2D collaboration on 3D designs management challenges ber of physical model defects in n Net result is relatively high num phase the development and prototyping

While the challenges can be overcome in-house by the largest OEMs through deployment of bespoke systems, small and medium enterprises (who generate far more data than do the big OEMs) do not have a sensible solution. Through extensive research and surveys, the team behind ICR3ATE hope to produce such a solution. Manfred van der Voort, the lead behind the projects, has taken up the challenge to specify, design, develop and release this solution in the form of ICR3ATE. The ICR3ATE platform consists of six user options covering everything from data capture and creation to manufacturing:

tct [21:1]

ICR3ATE is an ambitious project that has so far been five years in the making and that still has several months of development to go before it is unleashed. The man behind it, Manfred van der Voort, is an IT consultant, designer, carpenter and technology enthusiast in the extreme — and the partners that are working towards making ICR3ATE a reality read like an enviable ‘who’s who’ of the 3D design, collaboration and manufacturing world... But what exactly is ICR3ATE?

Scan-This The commercial name of the input channel for inputting a scan — the system is able to deal with all 3D scanner data from Microsoft Kinnect through to high-end laser scanners. Geometry, texture and geometry modificiation are all catered for. Cloud service partners are involved in taking scan data and transforming to CAD solids, or 3D digital capture — essentially any way you can get 3D data about the real world is compatible with the ICR3ATE platform. Once the scan data is imported it is optimised and made available to the 3D design tools. 3D Design Anywhere The ICR3ATE platform aims to bring 3D design to the cloud without platform bourdaries. The company has huge ambitions for this section of the project including getting the likes of SketchUp, Rhino, Spaceclaim and others to collaborate as cloudbased creation partners. The cornerstone of the technology is citrix XenDesktop that transforms desktops and apps into ondemand services — allowing access anywhere, at any time and on any device. The citrix system also puts security first, meaning that users can design and collaborate with confidence. The platform puts digital rights management at the heart of the system with the Collada file standard (and its .dae digital asset exchange file standard) used across the platform along with an as-yet-undisclosed partner with an exciting rights management system that will help to ensure that all IP created in, imported into and collaborated on through the ICR3ATE platform.

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[Software]

Publish-in-3D What Manfred calls the ‘simple’ bit of the platform, publish in 3D allows users to publish their 3D models on the web with full IP control and social sharing. Again there is more than meets the eye with this aspect of the system with a number of high-profile development partners helping the team to address some of the problems inherent with publishing 3D content in a collaborative and safe environment as well as managing material libraries across multiple applications.

Make Instantly Once you have scanned and imported you model, or created it on your device in the cloud, published it and collaborated with your global team, you might want to make something. That something could be a digital model, a physical model, an image or something else. By connecting to a myriad of output mechanisms from 3D printing services, prototyping services, manufacturing services and others teams have the ability to seamlessly get the desired end-product.

The ICR3ATE platform will also include a cloud-based nearreal-time rendering solution that will allow geographically distant teams to develop collaboratively in close-to real time.

Conclusion The ICR3ATE platform is an ambitious project but one that could be revolutionary — with much of the back-office still under wraps there is sure to be more to the platform by the time it is launched at TCT Show + Personalize in September.

Collaborate2Go Another well-known set of tools tweaked and integrated to the platform. The kicker here, like for the rest of the tools, is that collaboration will be open-standard, secure and — unlike most current web-based systems — independent of plugins.

Run SketchUp Pro • anywhere • on any device & OS

Collaborate with 3D model • near real time rendered • interactively • asynchronously

Validate

Design

Collaborate Visualise Draw

ICR3ATE www.icr3ate.com

View the 3D model • interactively • realistically • physically

Visualise Publish

Promote

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[Software]

Pricing Additive Manufacturing Processes WORDS | RAY ERICSSON

In the previous edition of TCT magazine Asiga’s Ray Ericsson looked at Asiga QuoteServer, an online quoting and ordering tool for additive manufacturing businesses. Since then Ray received many responses like: “Great, but, er, how exactly do I price my processes?” Surprisingly, a lot of bureaux use guesstimates to price their parts. This is damaging in the long run because underestimating hurts profitability, while overestimating reduces your competitiveness. Here Ray takes a look at how to accurately price your parts... I’ve devoted this article to being a tutorial on how to quote additive manufacturing processes correctly. You can easily adapt the examples given here to any additive process, such as stereolithography (SLA), multi-jet modelling (MJM), fused deposition modelling (FDM), selective laser sintering (SLS), digital light processing (DLP) and more. I’ll also explain why most businesses fall into guesstimation methods instead of correct pricing models and how to easily break out of this habit. Raster or Vector? The first step is to identify what sort of process your additive manufacturing system uses. Processes generally fall under two categories: vector or raster based. Different pricing models apply to each. Vector processes use a single processing point, such as a laser spot or an extrusion head, which is steered across a layer to fabricate the part. Generally, the time to produce each layer is a function of the area of the layer. Producing ten parts in parallel with a vector process takes approximately ten times as long as a single part. Examples of vector processes include selective laser sintering, laser stereolithography and fused deposition modelling. Raster processes use multiple processing points to fabricate voxels of the part in parallel. For example, the processing device may be an arrayed printhead with multiple inkjet nozzles, or a multimedia projector which projects an array of pixels. With raster processes, the time to produce a layer of the part is independent of the crosssectional area of the part. It generally takes the same time to produce one or ten parts in parallel, provided they fit into the system’s build envelope. Examples of raster processes include DLP stereolithography and multi-jet 3D printing. Which parameters do I need? To calculate the cost of producing a part you need to start with the necessary parameters. Some parameters relate to the part geometry and others relate to the additive process being used. Part Parameters. These can be calculated from the part’s CAD data. The essential ones include: the part’s volume, the part’s shadow volume (i.e. the volume which needs to be supported), the part’s bounding-box extents in the X, Y and Z directions, and the part’s surface area. Process Parameters. These are specific to the type of additive process being used. They include laser spot size and spot velocity (for stereolithography processes), time per layer (for raster processes), layer thickness, machine cost, and material costs.

tct [21:1]

Let’s demonstrate with a couple of examples. Table 1 Vector Process Pricing Model Machine Cost and operation:

Machine Attributes:

Part Attributes:

Value

Units

Target income per year

50000

Operating days per year

250

days

Operating hours per day

hours

>>> Cost Per Hour

166.67

$/hour

Scan Velocity

3000

mm/s

Spot Size

0.125

Layer Thickness

0.01

Time per layer levelling

Build Envelope X

250

Build Envelope Y

250

Build Envelope Z

250

Z Null Height

Part X

100

Part Y

Part Z (height)

Part Volume

20000

mm3

Shadow Volume

7000

mm3

>>> Number of layers

540

>>> Scanning Time

533.33333

>>> Levelling Time

2700

>>> Total Build Time

3233.3333

>>> Machine Time Cost 3

149.691358

Material Cost:

Build material cost $/cm

0.5

$/cm3

>>> Material Cost

10.35

TOTAL

>>> Total Cost

160.04

Example 1: A Vector Process – Laser Stereolithography Table 1 summarises the key variables used in pricing a laser stereolithography process. Blue squares indicate required input process parameters. Yellow squares indicate parameters calculated by geometric analysis of the CAD file (e.g. in STL or SLC format). Green squares indicate computed values. The first section of Table 1 calculates the cost of the equipment per unit time. The calculation is: Cost_per_hour = Target_Income_Per_Year / (Operating_days_per_year * Operating_hours_per_day)

Notice that I’ve used “target income per year” as the primary cost in the numerator, not simply “machine cost per year”. If you’re running a business then the cost of staff salaries and keeping the lights on in your facility may dominate the costs of finance and machine servicing.

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[Software] The second section of Table 1 contains the key attributes of the particular stereolithography machine in question. For example, the “time per layer levelling” is the time it takes for the wiper blade to transit from one side of the vat to the other. The “Z Null Height” is height of support structures that must be laid down before the actual part’s layers start printing. The third section of Table 1 contains part attributes that are determined from geometric analysis of the STL or SLC file. These include X, Y and Z extents of the parts bounding box, part volume and shadow volume. The fourth section of Table 1 contains the calculations leading to the final result. Let’s work through them. Note that for simplicity I’ve omitted any unit conversions from the equations.

Example 2: A Raster Process – Multi-Jet Modelling Table 2 summarises the key variables used in pricing a raster process. The example here is based on a multi-jet 3D printer which utilises a sacrificial support material. The calculation has many similarities to the vector process of Example 1, except that we need to consider that multiple parts in the build envelope are built simultaneously without incurring any additional cost in machine time. For this reason we calculate a machine cost per hour per unit area:

Number_of_layers = Part_Z / (Layer_Thickness + Z_Null_Height)

where the Cost_Per_Hour is calculated as described previously for a vector process. We also have a constant printing time per layer to consider. Each layer is printed in a known number of passes of the print head. Working through the calculations:

Scanning_Time = Part_Volume / (Layer_Thickness * Spot_Size * Scan_Velocity) Levelling_Time = Number_of_layers * Time_per_layer_levelling Total_Build_Time = Scanning_Time + Levelling_Time

Cost_Per_Hour_Per_XY_Area = Cost_Per_Hour / (Build_Envelope_X * Build_Envelope_Y)

Build_Time = Number_of_layers * Time_per_layer

Machine_Time_Cost = Build_Time * Cost_Per_Hour

Material costs comprise that used for the part and also the support structures. Here I’ve assumed that the support volume is 10% of the part’s shadow volume. Material_Cost = Build_Material_Cost * Part_Volume + Build_Material_Cost * Shadow_Volume * 0.1

Build_Material_Cost = Part_Volume * Build_Material_Cost Support_Material_Cost = Shadow_Volume * Support_Material_Cost

Total_Cost = Machine_Time_Cost + Material Cost

The total cost is then the sum of the machine time cost, build material cost and support material cost, i.e.

Table 2 Raster Process Pricing Model

Machine Attributes:

Part Attributes:

Value

Units

Target income per year

350000

Operating days per year

250

days

Operating hours per day

hours

>>> Cost Per Hour

116.67

$/hour

Seconds per layer

Layer thickness

0.016

Build Envelope X

127

Build Envelope Y

178

Build Envelope Z

230

Z base height

>>> Cost Per Hour Per mm2 of XY Area

0.00516

$/hour/mm2

Part X

Part Y

Part Z (height)

Part Volume

5000

mm3

Shadow Volume

2000

mm3

>>> Number of layers

1812.5

>>> Build Time

10.069

>>> Fraction of Build Envelope

0.028

>>> Machine Time Cost

0.50

$/cm3

Support material cost $/cm

0.20

$/cm3

>>> Material cost

2.90

>>> Total Cost

35.38

Build material cost $/cm

TOTAL

tct [21:1]

hours

32.479445

Material Cost:

Machine_Time_Cost = Build_Time * Cost_Per_Hour_Per_XY_Area * Part_X * Part_Y

The material costs are calculated as follows:

The total cost is then:

Machine Cost and operation:

Fraction_of_Build_Envelope = Part_X * Part_Y / (Build_Envelope_X * Build_Envelope_Y)

Total_Cost = Machine_Time_Cost + Build_Material_Cost + Support_Material_Cost

That was easy, right? The calculations are easy once you have the correct parameters. And there lies the problem: While many STL file viewers can give you the part’s volume and bounding box extents, there’s no CAD program that I’m aware of that gives you the part’s shadow volume easily. And even if there was, isn’t it a little backwards to be manually processing parts and entering values into spreadsheets when computers are designed to do that for you? A solution We developed Asiga QuoteServer with the above issues in mind. We realised additive manufacturing businesses needed a simple platform to automate quoting, ordering and production management. All the necessary part parameters are calculated automatically, and there are numerous templates for pricing raster and vector processes like those presented above and plenty more. QuoteServer is a completely web-based tool that can be configured and branded to your business in a matter of hours. QuoteServer gives a bureau the scalability and online presence of the world’s biggest prototyping bureaus with zero up-front investment. Conclusion Incorrect quoting damages your business in the long run by losing money or losing customers to the competition. Additive manufacturing businesses may struggle to implement exact pricing models because the necessary parameters require specific analysis of CAD files, which isn’t readily available.

Asiga www.asiga.com

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[Software]

Product and Service Advantage is the New Paradigm The Economist magazine has stated that the world is entering the “third industrial revolution”. The first revolution gave us the standardisation of parts, the second welcomed the moving assembly line and the “third” introduces products taking on a virtual form – by the transformation of global manufacturing in the digital world, and the leveraging of technologies and the process changes that technology enables. What does this mean for manufacturers today? “A new era is upon us,” said Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO of PTC. “To win in the new century requires a new way of thinking. For manufacturers, it’s about making fundamentally smarter strategy decisions. Today, advantage goes to those who differentiate their product and service offering. “Over the past few decades, global manufacturers have made massive investments in technology and process change aimed at improving operational efficiency,” said Heppelmann. “Today, however, we are reaching the limits of the competitive edge these investments can deliver. Manufacturers need to be operationally efficient to stay in the game, but they no longer achieve meaningful advantage from that alone. The time has come for a new source of competitive advantage – product and service advantage – from technology and process change that improves strategy decision-making across the enterprise, from engineering to the supply chain to sales and service networks.” Over its 25-year history, PTC has developed expertise in helping companies optimise the processes associated with each stage of the product lifecycle. In recent years, through a combination of organic development and acquisition, PTC has built a broad portfolio of technology solutions that it combines with its process expertise to assist customers in achieving product and service advantage. The company is now organised to drive its technology solution strategies in the areas of product lifecycle management (PLM), computer-aided design (CAD), application lifecycle management, supply chain management (SCM), and service lifecycle management. Software is fast becoming the differentiator for manufacturers in all industries. Customers demand increasingly innovative products, but market pressures such as growth and profitability, quality, globalisation and product variation make product development exceedingly challenging. As companies use software to drive innovation in engineered products, they struggle to manage increased complexity and pace of change inherent in software development. The rewards of software innovation are balanced by the risks and challenges of regulation, stringent quality requirements, market pressures, and significant complexity. Balancing these competing interests requires tailored application lifecycle management tools that address the unique needs of industry. Through the acquisition of market-leading application lifecycle management technology company, MKS, in 2011, PTC began to develop and market software designed specifically for the creation and management of embedded software. Application Lifecycle Management is a continuous process of managing the life of a software application from concept to delivery throughout the entire development process. Taking the medical device industry as an example, software can serve as a source of innovation and be a key differentiator, especially given the adaptability of software and the speed at which software changes can be prototyped and implemented. Software is also becoming more voluminous and complex, which creates significant risk. To further complicate matters, software components used in medical devices fall

PTC www.ptc.com

under the regulatory scrutiny of the FDA for products marketed in the U.S., and the European Medical Device Directive. For all medical devices, including those categorised by the FDA as Class 3, which present the highest risk but also the greatest potential value to patients, PTC provides a comprehensive application lifecycle management solution that streamlines compliance, minimises risk, and improves the safety and quality of products. Kardium, a pioneer in the development of medical devices for cardiovascular patients, uses PTC’s application lifecycle management solution in its research and development facility, created to commercialise several patent pending concepts. The founders of Kardium recognised that developing sophisticated medical devices for this highly competitive market required a product to orchestrate the management of all engineering artefacts including requirements, specifications, and test. In order to meet both safety and time-to-market goals, the solution needed to automate global regulatory reporting and scale easily, as well as enable trace management and accommodate Kardium product development processes. “Kardium’s goal is to grow the company quickly with a strong set of unique, compelling products to improve the health and extend the lifespan of cardiac patients worldwide,” said Doug Goertzen, CEO at Kardium. “To meet our aggressive schedules, we needed an integrated, out-of-the box solution with quick time-to-value. Based on a very thorough evaluation, we selected PTC’s solution to help us reduce development cycle time, improve product quality, and get quality products to market before our competitors.” But, technology doesn’t stop at the delivery of a product in these tough, competitive times. So rather than just designing and building products, manufacturers are now focused on delivering solutions to their customers that drive high value. These solutions are the combination of their best products and their best services. As it turns out, these services are driving high customer satisfaction, lots of customer retention, big revenue streams and high margins. Service Lifecycle Management has emerged as a technology that can turn service from a cost-centre to a profit-centre. PTC’s unique approach to Service Lifecycle Management is productcentric — meaning the central organising construct for services processes, data and history is the product itself. The company used this innovative approach to build five solutions around five key functions inside an OEM: Technical Information, Service Parts, Warranty and Contract Management, In-Service Product Support and Service Event Management. This approach enables companies to deliver and capture product knowledge at the point of service. It also provides a closed feedback loop between engineering and service, continuously improving both service and product performance — including areas such as field service, remote monitoring, spare parts planning, contact centre, warranty management and service knowledge management. Often, service teams are managed functionally to improve individual service processes such as customer support, spare parts, and warranty. However, this disparate approach can’t provide the benefits of a crossfunctional, “full service lifecycle” approach – especially as it relates to customer expectations for products throughout the service lifecycle. A single system for service optimises product and service performance, from a single unit to the entire installed base. This is accomplished by organising service strategy and delivery around maximising product performance to yield the greatest customer value and service performance. True enterprise Service Lifecycle Management solutions connect service planning, delivery, and performance analysis into a complete and strategic view of service that helps drive increased service revenues and profitability.

[Materials]

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aterials are at the heart of any production process, whether that be production of prototypes or final parts, and nowhere is this more evident than in AM. The ability to use tried-and-tested materials — or at least emulate them in a quantifiable way — is one of the hurdles we hear most often regarding the implementation of AM into an established process. In the metals arena the restrictions are less of an issue as the range of validated metals and alloys has been growing at a decent pace for the last few years. In the plastics space a handful of new players (Solvay, page 63 being one) are looking to blow open the closed platforms and sell AM-specific polymers in the same way they sell their other chemicals — on an open market. The machine manufacturers are still in control to a large extent however and the legal casebooks are littered with litigation where materials suppliers have cried foul — only to lose their cases in the courts. The fact of the matter is that AM machine manufacturers have the distinct advantage of being able to co-develop machines and the materials they process from day one. Everyone else is playing catch-up. For the end user this status quo does nothing to instil confidence in the overall technology, especially once up to OEM level. Multiple suppliers are not only desirable for them but in most cases an absolute necessity, and that spans everything from hand tools to material grades. The autosport community remains one of the biggest drivers of new materials thanks to their relatively large budgets, relatively low need for a defined outcomes and relatively small volume requirements — F1 has, after all, been described as the biggest money laundering operation known to man! The level of experimentation and the money spent on it is phenomenal and it’s no surprise that it is here we see the most innovation.

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CRP (www.crp.eu, page 60) for example develops and implements new materials for motorsports that are then taken up by the wider automotive community. The test-bed of motorsport is still an important one. In the UK, RP Support (www.rpsupport.co.uk) has launched a new laser sintering powder, PA 550-ACF, a Nylon 12 based material, filled with aluminium and carbon fibre. The powder is different to any other commercially available sintering material available on the UK market today and has been developed to meet specific customer needs for both tooling applications and F1 applications including wind tunnel models, internal on-car parts such as electronic enclosures and jigs for trimming final composite parts. In the US Viridis now licenses ViriClay, a 3D printable ceramic, from the University of the West of England. The company is also in the process of launching MakerDust — a starch-based, offwhite model making powder that will be launched with special binders and infiltrants. The material is used with the Z Printer process and has already been used in the creation of a soft robotic tentacle (http://mytct.co/UxuZD4). Expect to see more products from the company under the MakerDust brand throughout the year, as well as some further interesting developments. EOS made progress to address environmental concerns with the launch of higher-recyclability polyamide (PA 2221) of which more can be re-used in subsequent builds. For many materials it is the lack of re-use (which is to say all or most of the materials in the build volume must be discarded after a build, regardless of whether the material was used in the part or not) increases part costs to such a degree than any benefit of a subtractive process is lost. Remember to check www.tctmagazine.com regularly for all the latest materials news.

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Taking 3D Printing from

RACING TO AUTOMOTIVE CRP Group is involved as technological partner in several projects that span motorsports to automotive. This article illustrates how technologies like 3D printing usually used in racing, can be translated into non-racing automotive applications.

ne such transformation has happened with the constructions of parts for the DeltaWing racecar and the construction of Energica headlight covers for the CRP electric motorcycle. CRP has adopted 3D Printing together with Windform materials for building the parts showing how this technology can be transferred from racetrack to road. CRP decided to use 3D Printing and Windform materials to build the following parts of DeltaWing racecar: n Bespoke electronics enclosures n Electrical breakout boxes n Transmission seal covers with integrated pressurized oil feed passages n Tow hook plinth

Continues on p63

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[Materials] Continued from p63

Windform XT 2.0 was the material predominantly used for the manufacturing of these parts because of its mechanical and thermal characteristics. The use of 3D printing and Windform materials were fundamental to shorten the timing of car construction. In this case CRP Technology and CRP USA worked to support step by step the technical staff of the Delta Wing team in order to help them find the best solution. The carbon fibre reinforced Windform XT 2.0 was used to construct the gearbox side covers too. The DeltaWing utilised a â&#x20AC;&#x153;non-stressed memberâ&#x20AC;? engine and gearbox to reduce the structural requirements of the assembly as well as reducing the vibration loads introduced into the lightweight car. The specific stiffness of the material did not affect the weight of the vehicle and this is fundamental for a racecar. With 3D printing technology the staff of DeltaWing was able to make a very complicated geometry, keep gentle radiuses in the oil passages, and getting rid of all unnecessary material without introducing great cost or lead time in the parts. Windform materials are chosen for motorsports applications as well as automotive applications. A clear example of the use of 3D printing and Windform materials in the automotive field is represented by the construction of headlight covers of Energica, the electric streetbike. The realisation of the covers started from the use of reverse engineering. This technology represents a fundamental tool to recreate, design samples that are no more at disposal from the point of view of the industrial production, or to create pieces that are unique. Reverse Engineering represents a considerable advantage in the reduction of engineering timing in order to obtain high-quality products. Reverse Engineering can be used as the starting point for development of a product.

Once CRP chose the style of headlight cover, the part was made of polyurethane, subsequently scanned with a FARO laser scanner. The instrument connected to a system of acquisition and processing of images, which led to the determination of the cloud of points of the covers by using a scanner to a single camera (mono). Then CRP obtained the STL file of the cloud of points of the cover, this latter was then imported to CAD for the realisation of the final geometry of the component. The Windform GF 2.0 is the material used for the realisation of the headlight covers which was manually smoothed and then painted silver with strong aesthetic impact. The demanding automotive market needs technical partners that can increase flexibility and speed up realisation of new projects, without losing in quality and assuring prompt delivery. The advantages of 3D printing for automotive applications are mainly related to the extreme speed in execution, closely connected to the mechanical characteristics of state-of-the-art materials.

Windform XT 2.0 Tow Hook Plinth

Windform GF 2.0 Energica headlight covers

CRP Group www.crp.eu

Windform material parts are closer and closer to those obtained with traditional production technologies that are used for large production series. Yet, in a highly specialised market where functional prototypes are becoming a direct extension of the construction project, the flexibility and production timing of resistant, light, accurate, highly complex parts with a strong aesthetic component are becoming a must for companies that want to remain competitive. Windform materials together with 3D printing can offer functional materials with quite marked differences and companies beyond automotive can choose between stiffness, elasticity, resistance to high temperatures, resistance to pressure, resistance to liquids (water, oil, fuels), lightness, toughness and wear resistance. Designers and planners can choose the appropriate material and construct a functional prototype that is almost a finished part in a few days after the conclusion of the CAD project.

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[Materials]

Solvay — Entering a closed market Solvay recently launched a range of polyamide powders for use in additive manufacturing systems. TCT caught up with Pierre-Emmanuel Lucas, New Business Project Director at Solvay Engineering Plastics to see what drew the company into this sector and how it hopes to grow it’s market share in a notoriously closed industry. How long have Solvay been active (in terms of initial research to commercialisation) in producing powders for AM systems? Initially, Solvay developed its powder micronisation technology as a low-key R&D investment, filing its first patent in 2006. Over the last three years Solvay intensified and accelerated market penetration and now has a dedicated team focusing on direct manufacturing using the new PA Powder. What was the attraction to this industry, and why now? Solvay’s Marketing and Innovation department is constantly monitoring market megatrends in which our customers are operating. We identified additive manufacturing as a new and revolutionising manufacturing process which will shake up part cost, design and time to market. AM regroups several different technologies among which Solvay identified laser sintering which offers the best value-added performance for technical components, a key target for Solvay’s numerous material solutions.

Solvay Engineering Plastics www.solvay.com

What are the challenges specific to this industry that you have faced? There were many challenges associated with this industry such as a limited and inadequate equipment offering with sintering machines that had reduced processing capabilities. There was also a need for improved CAD software to enable better freeform creation. Today many of these challenges have been addressed with a wider offer in specific software increasing every year with an ever-greater number of sintered serial parts in consumer and industrial goods. Our value proposition is to drive and extend the use of AM technology toward functional and small series parts for the engineered plastics (EP) market thanks to the highly improved thermoplastic powders now available to end-users. The technology is very well known for making prototypes, however it needs to be developed and recognised at an educational, industrial and design level for the broader promotion of production serial and functional components. Have you worked with machine manufacturers in the development processes? From the outset, Solvay’s approach to new product development ensures these can be processed on existing equipment but they will offer better results on upgraded equipment. Progress still needs to be made. By working closely and collaborating with machine and equipment manufacturers chemical companies can help manufacturers adapt equipment for use with a wider range of engineering thermoplastics. How was the material validation work undertaken? Our product development process follows a stage-gate methodology with initial steps taking place at laboratory level. Once the screening phase is approved the next stage includes pilot production samples that are tested with pilot customers. Finally we perform a combination of validation stages both internally and with external partners. As machine manufacturers currently supply machines, materials and service contracts and run closed systems, how do you plan to achieve market penetration? It is correct that machine manufacturers play a very important role in this market segment. They developed this market from the very beginning but still have a level of responsibility for the success of this technology in the future. Our intention is to bring value-added development to this market by expanding the field of material solutions on the understanding that machine manufacturers will play their role by improving the use of their equipment for high-end engineering polymers thereby offering a greater level of replication and productivity.

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[Directory] To advertise here call Carol Hardy on 01244 680222 or email carol@rapidnews.com

TA K I N G D E S I G N T O P R O D U C T I O N STEREOLITHOGRAPHY (SLA) 3D PRINTING (OBJET) SELECTIVE LASER SINTERING (SLS) DIRECT METAL LASER SINTERING (DMLS) FUSED DEPOSITION MODELLING (FDM) VACUUM CASTING CNC PRECISION MACHINING (3,4 & 5 AXIS) PROFESSIONAL PAINT /FINISHING FACILITY t. 01786 464434 e. sales@camodels.co.uk

www.camodels.co.uk

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[Directory] To advertise here call Carol Hardy on 01244 680222 or email carol@rapidnews.com

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