TCT North America 6.3 by TCT Magazine

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Additive in the aircraft cabin and supply chain.

MAG NORTH AMERICAN EDITION

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Map of AM bureaus open and ready for business.

VOLUME 6 ISSUE 3

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MAKE METAL GREEN EXONE DRIVES SUSTAINABILITY MESSAGE IN COVID-19 RESPONSE AND BEYOND

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ExOne's reusable respirator filter is 3D printed in copper and fitted in a sterilizable mask 3D printed by Open Health Solutions, an aﬃliate of digital dentistry provider Core3DCentres.

EDITORIAL

HEAD OF CONTENT

Daniel O’Connor e: daniel.oconnor@rapidnews.com t: 011 + 44 1244 952 398 DEPUTY GROUP EDITOR

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FROM THE EDITOR

UP IN THE AIR

It's hard to believe we're already on our third issue of TCT Magazine to go into production during lockdown - or whatever it is we're currently calling it here in the UK. While most activity has been put on hold as a result of COVID-19, those with additive manufacturing capabilities appeared to do the opposite, churning out parts and case studies, and temporarily switching up printer sales in favour of service provider models to prop up supply chain gaps. CONTEXT provides an in-depth look at how the pandemic has impacted the industrial section of the AM industry on page 21 and I chat to Protolabs CEO Vicki Holt about the millions of COVID-related parts the company has now produced and why technology could provide the answer to other long-term global challenges (page 15). Do you remember aeroplanes? Those big metal things with wings that we used to travel in to get to places? How about in-person conferences? The kind that don’t necessitate a stable internet connection or shushing family members out of your spare room/ conservatory/shed (just three of the 'working from home' locations this issue was brought to you by) but do require you to wear shoes? To jog your memory, on page 11 we're taking a look at additive applications within the commercial aircraft cabin based on case studies shared by the likes of Lufthansa Technik and Etihad Engineering at the last international event I attended before the global lockdown. Similarly, Dan reports on two days spent hearing examples of AM adoption elsewhere in the aerospace supply chain from jigs and fixtures to flight-critical production parts at the Additive Manufacturing for Aerospace & Space Conference 2020 – remarkably, not a single one of those examples was the much-cited GE Aviation LEAP fuel nozzle, as you’ll see on page 9. Speaking of jigs and fixtures, Sam finds out how Fastlane Turnstiles is using 3D printing to build production aids that see its logo perfectly placed along the corridors of oﬃces at Facebook, Dell, Google, and more to keep their buildings secure. Over on page 23, Sam also chats with industry newcomer Haute Fabrication, a company formed under the mentorship of Structured Polymers and the late Carl Deckard. If you’re a print subscriber, you’ll have probably already spotted our annual Service Provider Locator pull-out, free inside this issue (or as a digital download via Issuu). Unfold it, stick it to your oﬃce wall (be that your own spare room, conservatory or shed) and use it to find AM bureau that are open and ready for business.

LAURA GRIFFITHS DEPUTY GROUP EDITOR

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TCT VOLUME 6 ISSUE 3

COVER STORY

06. MAKE METAL GREEN ExOne on its drive for sustainability in COVID-19 response and beyond.

Aerospace

09. SMALL STEPS AFTER THE GIANT LEAP

Head of Content Daniel O’Connor on the current demands on aerospace supply chain.

10. AM IN THE AIRCRAFT CABIN

Deputy Group Editor Laura Griﬃths details a selection of parts currently flying inside today’s aircraft cabins.

13. INNOVATING FOR EFFICIENCY WITH AM IN THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY

Patrick Dunne, VP, Advanced Application Development at 3D Systems, explores the advantages the aerospace industry can gain by embracing DFAM/AM.

Service Providers

15. PROTOLABS CEO: I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY

Laura speaks to Vicki Holt about activities at one of the biggest AM service providers on the globe.

INDUSTRIAL AM EQUIPMENT 21. TIME TO REFOCUS

CONTEXT’S Chris Connery assesses the facts and figures of shipments of additive equipment priced in excess of 100,000 USD.

23. INTRODUCING HAUTE FABRICATION

Assistant Editor Sam Davies speaks to the brains behind a new largescale industrial additive platform.

Jigs & Fixtures

27. 3D PRINTING IN THE FAST LANE

Sam takes a look at how Fastlane Turnstiles sees AM as an integral part of its manufacturing business.

EXECUTIVE Q&A

31. FRIED VANCRAEN ON CREATING REAL SUSTAINABILITY The Materialise CEO looks back at the moment he realized AM represented a paradigm shift.

32 expert advisory column 32. A KNIGHT TO REMEMBER

TCT Expert Advisory Board Member and Head of AM at Sartorious Jeremy Pullin on the perils of time sensitive manufacture.

EXONE PUSHES TO MAKE METAL GREE THE LEADER IN BINDER JETTING AMPLIFIES ITS SUSTAINABILITY MESSAGE WITH UNIQUE COVID-19 RESPONSE AND NEW CAMPAIGN

y the time the COVID-19 crisis had been declared a pandemic in March, the global 3D printing industry had already sprung into action with a historic effort to produce valves, testing swabs, face shields and a variety of other innovative solutions in record time to fill supply chain gaps. At ExOne, the company’s global team was eager to contribute, too. But almost all of the 3D response had so far been in plastics, while ExOne specializes in binder jet 3D printing of metal, sand, and ceramics. For John Hartner, the company’s CEO, the desire to help was personal as one of his daughters is an ICU nurse in New York City, which had been hit hard by the crisis. So, Hartner started brainstorming with the R&D team about where the company’s technology could best contribute a meaningful solution. The idea of reusable, sterilizable metal filters for N95 face masks quickly rose to the top of the list. After all, ExOne customers had been 3D printing metal filters for years. What’s more, at the nearby University of Pittsburgh, Prof. Markus Chmielus had been doing research on controlling the porosity and microstructure of metal parts binder jetted on the ExOne Innovent 3D printer with different sintering approaches. With news growing of PPE shortages worldwide and increasing concern about enormous amounts of medical waste, including at Pittburgh’s own medical facilities, Pitt and Chmielus agreed to work with ExOne to rapidly develop a porous and reusable metal filter that could meet an N95 specification for filtering out contaminants while allowing the proper amount of airflow.

SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION GETS POSITIVE RESULTS

In April, after preliminary testing was positive, ExOne and Pitt announced the innovative filter, which could be 3D printed in either copper or stainless steel, to fit inside a variety of face masks and other medical devices. Copper is an attractive material because it has known disinfectant powers and research suggests

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SHOWN:

EXONE PARTNERED WITH ALTAIR AND A MAJOR AUTOMOTIVE MANUFACTURER TO REDESIGN AN EXISTING CAR PART, REDUCING ITS WEIGHT BY 45% WITH BINDER JETTING

COVID-19 dies faster on copper than many other surfaces. Most importantly, the new reusable filters will be replacing filters that must be disposed of after a single use. The volume of waste associated with masks alone is staggering. Routine annual production of N95 respirators is estimated at 1.5 billion in the U.S., according to the Washington Post. The newspaper cited a 2017 study in Health Security journal that estimated up to 3.5 billion N95 masks would be needed during a pandemic. And that doesn’t count other medical equipment requiring filters. Today, ExOne has optimization work underway with new mask and filter designs and partners. The company now believes its filter solution will be a lasting game changer once it’s fully approved for commercial use. ExOne expects that to happen by year end.

5 ABOVE:

EXONE CONTINUES TO OPTIMIZE ITS METAL FILTERS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH MASK COMPANIES FOR COMMERCIAL RELEASE, WHICH IS EXPECTED LATER THIS YEAR

cover story

O EN “THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS HIGHLIGHTED THE IMPORTANCE OF DERISKING SUPPLY CHAINS, ESPECIALLY FOR CRITICAL PARTS.” “The way we see it, every frontline medical worker will be able to have their own custom-fit mask with a reusable metal filter for long-term use,” Hartner said. “By now, we’ve all seen the photos of masks littering beaches and parking lots, and we’re confident that this new application is going to have an impact on reducing waste going forward. We’ve had an incredible response to this new application, and we’re working urgently to get it to market.”

THE #MAKEMETALGREEN SUPPLY CHAIN LINK AT EXONE

Since its inception in 1995, ExOne has always been focused on the sustainability aspects of its core binder jetting technology; it’s why the company’s logo is green. But the focus on these benefits has intensified under Hartner, who believes they're one of binder jetting’s core value propositions for customers. Binder jetting fabricates objects with little to no waste, offering a dramatic improvement over traditional manufacturing methods. It also enables all new lightweight part designs, including those that consolidate many pieces of a product into a single unit, while preserving function and strength. These new parts can make cars, trucks, airplanes and other equipment more fuel-eﬃcient and dramatically shorten supply chains, consuming far less energy. In fact, this approach

SHOWN: EXONE HAS REDESIGNED A NEW GREEN LIGHTING FEATURE INTO ITS 9TH AND 10TH METAL BINDER JETTING SYSTEMS

can deliver on a decentralized supply chain where quick local production of parts in a crisis is simplified. “One important aspect of sustainability is shortening supply chains,” Hartner said. “Our technology can consolidate several parts into one, eliminating extra manufacturing steps, and also reduce the need for parts to be shipped around the world for final assembly. Whether you look at this as part of a reshoring or decentralized manufacturing strategy, it’s clear that this is the future of manufacturing. “The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of derisking supply chains, especially for critical parts. ExOne can work with manufacturers to ensure critical metal parts are prepared for 3D printing in an emergency and to help manufacturers redesign their parts for metal 3D printing in the first place.” One printed part that ExOne points to as delivering on this mission was designed in partnership with Altair and a major automotive manufacturer. An existing car part was redesigned for binder jetting and took advantage of its capabilities, resulting in a part that was 45% lighter, eliminated extra manufacturing processing steps and simplified how it was integrated into the vehicle assembly, with a shorter weld seam. “We believe this is the real future for binder jetting,” Hartner said. “Making metal parts smarter and lighter and

reducing energy consumption around the world to create and deliver them. Only binder jetting can deliver on this mission at high production volumes, which is why you’ve seen other companies following us into this space.”

DRIVING METAL 3D PRINTING ADOPTION THROUGH SUSTAINABILITY

ExOne is driving full-steam ahead with its sustainability message, with a new #MakeMetalGreen campaign, and working to document its sustainability benefits with new and existing customers. “We’re currently working to develop end-to-end research that show just how sustainable our technology is compared to traditional methods,” Hartner said. “As a company that runs its own production facilities for 3D printing metal parts 24-7, we already know, instinctively, how green our technology is compared to traditional methods. But we’re eager to help customers evaluate just how much they can save and improve their sustainability. “The potential benefits are enormous, whether you make an industrial product or even a smaller consumer device. You can streamline manufacturing processes, save energy, derisk your supply chain and even deliver new functional benefits to your customers.”

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AEROSPACE WORDS: DANIEL O'CONNOR

criticism I often level at additive manufacturing (AM) presentations is their reliance on the GE Aviation LEAP fuel nozzle as an example of series production. My career in AM is roughly the same age as that of the LEAP fuel nozzles, and in the sum 50 conferences I've attended, I genuinely believe I've seen it mentioned in every single one. In two whole days at the Additive Manufacturing for Aerospace & Space Conference 2020 (hosted a month before global lockdown hit), I didn't see a single slide with the application that is to 3D printing presentations what traﬃc is to my commute home, ubiquitous. If there was a theme from the proceedings, it was the need for the aerospace supply chain to get with the program. The requirement for supply chains to print qualified parts was present in the talks of Boeing, Airbus, and Leonardo Helicopters. In his opening remarks, the chair for day one, Sebastien Messé of Safran Landing Systems, set the tone by posing the question, "is supply chain ready to produce parts at the right quality and safety?" Steven Catt, the AM Technical lead at Thales, said that the industry needed to work together to establish some businessas-usual standards so as Thales isn't applying the same qualification levels to a coat hook as a flight-critical component. Steven is currently working to form a cross-industry collaboration involving the sharing of data for parts not considered to have significant intellectual property, to agree on an approach for supply chain standards.

that companies like Materials Solutions are few and far between. It's not just the qualification of parts that needs addressing; the qualification of machinery is a major pain-point. Melissa Orme VP of AM at The Boeing Company responded to a question from the floor with a comment that once a machine is qualified at Boeing, they prohibit software updates as an update would require requalification of the machine. Steven Catt suggested the following day that machine requalification is one of the most costly endeavours in AM. He stated that in many cases, machine requalification is more expensive than recreating a mold.

“IS SUPPLY CHAIN READY TO PRODUCE PARTS AT THE RIGHT QUALITY AND SAFETY?” Because, specifically with metal AM, we've been forging new ground for the last decade, the question of machine longevity also came up; it's, for this reason, the frequency of machine requalification in aerospace is high. The rate-limiting steps of AM were discussed in great length

during the panel sessions and networking breakouts; it could be enough to suppress one's AM appetite, that was if it wasn't for the abundance of AM in action throughout the remainder of the conference. Of particular interest was a talk from Dr. David Wragg of Leonardo Helicopters, whose evaluation of were AM fits for them was both pragmatic and enlightening. Leonardo's approach to AM is to ask the questions, where does it add value, and where does it create problems? David and the team consider AM 'normal' in low critical uses such as jigs, fixtures, and prototyping. However, Leonardo is now exploring materials like ULTEM and carbon fiber-filled polymers for applications like spare parts and maintenance repair and overhaul. One particularly impressive example David shared was of an exhaust component. The traditionally manufactured version was notoriously tricky to fit onto the aircraft. However, the titanium AM version is not only designed for perfect fit but included part consolidation, reducing joins, which in turn reduces the risk of leakages. Overall, it's clear that although we've not seen a giant leap for AM in aerospace since the fuel nozzles, the small steps are charting the right course.

One of the event's main sponsors was Siemens and its VP of AM for the Gas & Power division Markus Seibold was keen to point out how Materials Solutions was founded on the very proposition on being an aerospace accredited AM service provider. The Siemens-owned business was the first UK company to receive the important Nadcap accreditation for the aerospace industry. However, even though Materials Solutions has over 50 machines, the problem appears to be

VOL 6 ISSUE 3 / www.tctmagazine.com / 09

AM IN THE AIRCRAFT CABIN B

efore the world went into lockdown and we forgot what it’s like to get on a plane, TCT flew to Hamburg for the Red Cabin Aircraft Cabin Additive Manufacturing conference. There, aerospace and AM companies from Diehl Aviation to Stratasys spoke about current applications for AM inside commercial aircraft ranging from small parts like Lufthansa's re-designed wash basin filter, to Etihad Aviation Group’s ambitions to 3D print 60% of a next-generation cabin. Here, we take a look at just some of the interior aerospace applications possible today.

COCKPIT CUPHOLDER Satair created an optimized cupholder, inspired by the A300 wing tip and certified by Airbus, which reduces maintenance costs caused by spillages and can be manufactured eﬃciently in small batches. (Credit: Satair, an Airbus services company)

AIR GRILL Lufthansa Technik redesigned and 3D printed a damaged air grill for a 747 Cockpit ventilation duct. The new certified part is more durable and benefits from significant reduction to lead times, manufacturing and maintenance costs. (Credit: Lufthansa Technik)

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CONTROL UNIT COVER Used to enhance a business class seat and avoid unwanted activation of control buttons, these were printed with FDM by Additive Flight Solutions; one of 5,000+ cabin parts printed for the commercial airline aftersales market.

AEROSPACE

DUCTING Using a Stratasys Fortus 450mc and ULTEM 9085, Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group has implemented several pieces of 3D printed ducting for air conditioners along with holders for safety knives and interior switches. SPACER PANEL Airbus worked in partnership with Materialise to print a spacer panel – which fills an end-gap in a row of overhead storage compartments – for installation on board Finnair’s A320. The part was optimized to achieve a 15% weight reduction and painted using flame-retardant Airbus-approved materials.

MONITORS Emirates Engineering used 3D Systems’ SLS to produce video monitor shrouds in flame-retardant Duraform ProX FR1200. They are 9-13% lighter and could contribute to significant reductions in fuel emissions. (Credit: 3D Systems)

FOOT PEDAL Polymaker’s flame-retardant polycarbonate-based filament is used by China Eastern airlines to reduce lead times and costs by 3D printing interior spare parts in-house.

FIRST CLASS Companies are exploring how AM could be used to customize the first class cabin experience. According to Etihad, 3D printing in low production volumes could make entire retrofits 30% faster.

CURTAIN HEADER Diehl Aviation adopted Stratasys F900 to produce a curtain header for the A350 XWB. Measuring up to 1140 x 720 x 240 mm and consisting of 12 components which are glued together after 80 hours print time, it is Diehl’s largest serial 3D printed part to date.

PARTITION Building on a concept introduced in 2015, Autodesk has been working to optimize the design of an Airbus partition wall that supports crew jump seats. Following initial trials in metal AM, the design is now 3D printed in plastic as a mold that is then cast in a flight-qualified metal alloy.

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INNOVATING FOR EFFICIENCY WITH AM IN THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY PATRICK DUNNE, VICE PRESIDENT, ADVANCED APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT AT 3D SYSTEMS EXPLORES THE ADVANTAGES THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY CAN GAIN BY EMBRACING DFAM/AM.

s green credentials increasingly gain importance for many businesses, manufacturers are looking for new ways to create products that deliver performance efficiencies. The aerospace industry is at the forefront, looking for opportunities to innovate with novel designs that ultimately help improve fuel efficiency. Additive manufacturing (AM) is a revolutionary technology that is changing the way many companies are designing and producing products. In aerospace, this rapid, minimally constrained design environment allows for step changes in design optimization. At a practical level, this is now enabling aerospace companies to design better, faster and more efficient platforms. DESIGN SIMPLIFICATION, CONSOLIDATION AND PART COUNT REDUCTION Historically, complexity, cost, timeto-market, as well as end system reliability, hold a close correlation to the number of subcomponents within an assembly. The fewer parts you have, the less assembly required and, ultimately, the fewer points of failure. While a reduction in the number of parts as a design philosophy is not new, nor even exclusive to AM, it allows engineers to take it to a whole new level. My favourite recent example was a direct metal component that was traditionally made from 12 separate

castings and tubes, all welded into a single part. Aside from assembly labor, tools, jigs and fixtures – as well as a complex multivendor supply chain – it ultimately contained a QC step where nearly 10 meters of weld lines had to be meticulously CT inspected for defects. When AM was applied, 12 parts became one – and jigs and fixtures, assembly and slow QC inspection of weld lines were no longer required. The resultant part was lighter, had fewer points of failure, was more cost-effective and efficient to source and produce, and yielded better performance. THERMAL TRANSFER The fuel efficiency of jet engines is a function of multiple factors. One of these factors is system temperature. Typically, the hotter you can run the system, the more fuelefficient it becomes. A 100-200°C increase in temperature can account for a 1-2% efficiency increase. While that does not sound like much, it can equate to hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel savings for an airline when you look at thousands of engines flying many thousands of hours. AM allows engineers to integrate the design of exotic/conformal cooling structures into sub-components that ultimately allow the parts to maintain functional and structural integrity at these elevated temperatures. Similar principals of thermal transfer exist within rocket combustion systems, where temperature drives pressure. This, in turn, yields performance, as well as the rate of wear and tear/ ablation, feeding the trend towards system reuse economics.

WEIGHT REDUCTION AM holds huge potential benefits for the eﬃciency of spacecraft and satellites. Reducing the weight of parts that fly always yields improved fuel eﬃciency and performance. However, nowhere is this improvement realized more than space systems. Design-driven structural optimization, both manual and automatic, yields step changes in strength-to-weight ratios. Recent examples include Thales brackets for satellite antenna. Utilizing advanced structural algorithms, Thales was able to generate a bracket design that, when expressed in direct titanium printing, was 25% lighter – while maintaining the performance of a traditionally manufactured bracket. Further opportunities for optimization were identified based on transitioning to tubular structures, as we see in bicycle frames.

5S HOWN:

AM, THE EFFICIENCY BREAK-THROUGH When you combine thermal transfer, component consolidation, and weight reduction, you can see how AM has a large part to play in improving energy usage figures for the aerospace market. There are other benefits too such as more cost-effective R&D, reduced time to first part, and the ability to create bespoke parts, furthering innovation. AM is transforming how industry-leaders are creating new, improved products while gaining eﬃciencies that place them well ahead of their competitors.

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SERVICE PROVIDERS

PROTOLABS CEO: “I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY”

PROTOLABS CEO & PRESIDENT VICKI HOLT TALKS EMBRACING DIGITAL MANUFACTURING AND SUSTAINABILITY WITH DEPUTY GROUP EDITOR LAURA GRIFFITHS.

ive million and counting. That’s how many parts Protolabs had produced by mid-May, purely for COVID19-related applications. The company was one of countless manufacturers and service providers that quickly switched up their production lines for masks, swabs and ventilator components to produce vital parts on-demand. It’s a world away from those Met Gala ball gowns, 3D printed in collaboration with GE Additive, that featured in this very magazine just 12 months earlier. But Protolabs, a manufacturer of custom prototypes and production parts, has always known the value of digital manufacturing in responding to diverse manufacturing challenges ever since its founding in a garage in Long Lake, Minnesota in 1999 with a vision to drastically reduce lead times for plastic and metal parts through digitization. For Holt, who joined Protolabs in 2014 with already 35 years of experience in the sector, that vision remains the same.

“It [digital manufacturing] does mean different things to different companies,” Holt tells TCT. “At Protolabs, digital manufacturing means end-to-end digitization of the digital thread of information that starts right at the beginning when our customers interface with us on e-commerce and they upload a computer aided design or CAD file. That data is what our proprietary software analyzes in detail with parallel computing, in order to understand how we're going to make that part, turnaround a quote for that part and then once the customer finalizes their order, that same digital thread moves all the way through

 BELOW:

VICKI HOLT, PROTOLABS PRESIDENT AND CEO

our manufacturing process and allows us to manufacture custom parts in as little as a day in very low volumes and very economically. That speed and the scalability around which we can produce custom parts is fully enabled with the digital model.” If there is a positive to be found in the midst of this health pandemic, the reliance on speedy and distributed manufacturing has allowed that digital model to shine. Amongst those millions of parts produced, Protolabs has supplied 10,000 sterilizable and reusable face shields components for Michelin to support medics at two of France's largest university hospitals before altering the design and switching to injection molding to supply a further 20,000 in a matter of days. It has also worked with Mercedes-AMG F1 team and UCL to help manufacture an urgent CPAP device, and with Brescia-based engineers at Isinnova to supply 100 3D printed valves that turn snorkelling masks into non-invasive ventilator masks. On the day of our conversation alone the company had over 20 active COVID-19 related projects in production and Holt says she is proud of their teams for stepping up. “I think this whole thing has shone a light on the very, very important role that manufacturing plays in innovation and solving problems,” Holt explains. “I think people are realizing the importance that manufacturing has for us to be able to be the society that we are and sometimes we take that for granted. I think this has shone a light that no, we cannot take that for granted. We're very essential businesses.”

ADDING ADDITIVE

SHOWN: PROTOLABS CURRENTLY HOUSES MORE THAN 170 3D PRINTERS

With facilities across Europe, the U.S. and Japan, Protolabs specializes in 3D printing, CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication and injection molding services for prototypes and low volume production runs, all connected by a sophisticated software platform. Holt says it’s in the company’s DNA to “always think about a process from end to end” which is becoming increasingly important as the so-called digital thread becomes “more part of how we think as companies and how we exchange with each

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Together we lead the Additive Manufacturing Revolution

www.materials-solutions.com

SERVICE PROVIDERS

RIGHT: 

PROTOLABS RECENTLY EXPANDED ITS METAL 3D PRINTING CAPACITY

“PEOPLE ARE REALIZING THE IMPORTANCE THAT MANUFACTURING HAS.” other.” To that, Holt says 3D printing was a very logical addition to Protolabs’ toolset, which materialized in 2014 with the acquisition of Fineline Prototyping. Now, the company has over 170 additive manufacturing systems worldwide, 120 in North America alone, including machines from Carbon, HP and EOS. The most recent addition was the GE Additive Concept Laser X Line 2000R metal laser melting system that’s already serving large-volume metal projects across aerospace and industrial equipment applications. Although 3D printing currently only represents around 13% of Protolabs’ sales revenue, Holt believes we’re still in the early stages of tapping into its potential and as more product developers learn how and when they need to use the technology, those AM capabilities will continue to grow. “We see the technology [3D printing] bringing value in a couple of areas. It certainly, in its roots, was around prototyping and we still see an awful lot of prototyping solutions where a designer designs something, they just need something in their hand to see what it's going to look like and how it's going to fit. But more and more we're seeing manufacturers look at the actual structure of the product, and how could I design that product in a way that gives me another major business advantage whether it be light weighting, whether it be energy eﬃciency, and when you have 3D printing, you have complete design flexibility." On being a one-stop shop for multiple processes, Holt adds: “The great thing about our business model is we're not wedded to a single technology and the technologies play different roles, depending on what the customers part geometry is and what problem they're trying to solve,” Holt adds.

 RIGHT:

CHARLOTTE VALVES 3D PRINTED WITH HP MULTI JET FUSION

THE BUSINESS OF SUSTAINABILITY

While the pandemic has emphasized how technology can be used to solve immediate challenges, there’s another long-term challenge that Holt believes technology could have a real influence on: sustainability. The term has become a bit of a buzzword, particularly in additive manufacturing where the technology is often considered sustainable by nature - in theory, you only use the material you need rather than removing material from a solid block. In reality, it’s not so simple - but Protolabs is taking an active role, investing in initiatives that reduce waste, recycle materials like CNC machining shavings, water from the injection molding process and AM powders, and take advantage of renewable resources. “I am passionate about sustainability,” Holt says. “I believe that the answers to problems we've got around climate change are going to come from technologies and it's going to become from companies collaborating together to find these solutions. I’ve been very inspired by how companies have come together in this pandemic and it tells me we can solve the problems around climate change and focus on sustainability.”

Holt argues sustainability is embedded in Protolabs’ business model. Customers can order the exact number of parts they need, whether that be 25 or 10,000 injection molded parts or a single 3D printed prototype, there’s no need to order in large quantities to justify the cost of a mould tool or account for future demand. “One of the core things about our business model is we don't have minimum order quantities for customers. If you need one part, we'll make you one, if you need 52, we'll make you 52. A lot of companies and manufacturers require you to buy 10,000 of something or 100,000 of something. Well, that quantity might be a 10year supply and you might have a bunch of obsolescence and throw it away. For us, you just have to take what you need for your product at this point in time and eliminate the waste. That business model itself, I think drives for sustainability.” Listen to the interview in full: mytct.co/VickiHolt

VOL 6 ISSUE 3 / www.tctmagazine.com / 017

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Industrial AM Machinery

Across the next couple of issues, we’re taking a closer look at three classes of additive manufacturing machinery with the latest ﬁgures, trends and interviews with new and established players.

ONTEXT global market analysis of the 3D Printing industry shows that as of the end of Q1 2020, many 3D printer companies from the US, Europe, China and everywhere across the globe have rightly refocused their effort away from printer sales to producing much-needed supplies to help combat coronavirus, according to the latest by CONTEXT. Focusing efforts on producing much-needed medical supplies has meant a move away from the production and sale of printers towards service businesses and service-bureau infrastructure. Coming on the back of weak shipments in Q4 2019, this refocus – and the supply-and-demand

7,000

+19%

6,000 5,000

“FOCUSING EFFORTS ON PRODUCING MUCH-NEEDED MEDICAL SUPPLIES HAS MEANT A MOVE AWAY FROM THE PRODUCTION AND SALE OF PRINTERS.” constraints expected in the weeks to come – looks to make 2020 a diﬃcult year for 3D printer shipments. CONTEXT analysis shows that in the Industrial 3D Printing market – which accounted for 68% of global 3D printer hardware revenues 2019 – shipments in the second half of 2019 were slow, even though this is usually the strongest part of the year, and the outlook for 2020 was, therefore, already challenging. Taking into account both these negative headwinds and the supply-

4,000

+21% +23%

Q4 -23%

-2% Q4

Q3 Q3 +9%

3,000 2,000

+7%

+29% Q4 Flat Q3

Q2 Q2 +15% -21% Q2

1,000 0

+1%

©CONTEXT 2020

Starting with AM systems above the 100K USD threshold, market intelligence company CONTEXT's VP Global Analysis and Research, Chris Connery presents the latest ﬁndings from the Industrial section of the 3D printing market.

8,000

Q1 +13% Q1 2016

2017

2018

2019

-17% Q1 2020F

2021F

2022F

ABOVE: GLOBAL INDUSTRIAL 3D PRINTER SHIPMENTS AND FORECAST

and-demand challenges associated with global reactions to the coronavirus, this segment hopes to see a slide of only -2% in printer shipments in 2020 after its 5-year CAGR of +14% and anticipates a rolling recovery by region, starting with the East. As the pandemic comes under control and economies return to normal, there is great potential for the 3D printer market since the ability of the technology to assist with the immediate needs of the medical community have showcased its quick-turn capabilities worldwide. Responses to the pandemic are also demonstrating that leveraging 3D printing for local production, instead of relying on complex multinational supply chains, has the potential to help many companies mitigate future risk.

VOL 6 ISSUE 3 / www.tctmagazine.com / 021

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Industrial AM machinery

INTRODUCING HAUTE FABRICATION S WORDS: Sam Davies

omewhere between Iowa and Texas, there is a suite of metal additive manufacturing machines in transit, a host of automation technology pieces as well, and a team of people who make up the latest contract 3D printing service in the additive manufacturing space.

Haute Fabrication is in the process of bringing online four variants of its Hybrid Direct Laser Sintering (HDLS) machines, with build volumes ranging from 600 x 600 x 600 mm to 5200 x 5200 x 5200 mm, the number of lasers spanning between 1-4 and 64-144, and each with the capacity to learn from previous builds through artificial intelligence (AI). Notably, the machines can also heat treat components up to 2,400F, as they are manufactured, through built-in autoclaves. It has taken to the road to situate itself in a region steeped in additive manufacturing expertise. In Austin, Haute will join Structured Polymers, the additive manufacturing powder company set up by Vikram Devarajan, James Mikulak and the late Carl Deckard, as well as put itself in close proximity to Deckard’s former supervisor, Dr. Joe Beaman at the University of Texas. All have been the source of much guidance as appointed advisors in Haute’s early years.

going to be accepted as a mass manufacturing [technology], it has to be automated because one, you don’t want people around powder and two, the quality of life damages, such as carpal tunnel because of repeated motions. You need to go automated and robotic to eliminate those two and then reduce the cost down to where it’s acceptable.”

AUTOMATION

Back when Deckard developed Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) technology in the 1980s, to automate the technology so humans never came into contact with powder wasn’t possible. It was barely possible in 2013. For Friesth, who had this vision of taking the foundations of laser sintering technology and supplementing it

HAUTE FABRICATION’S HDLS PLATFORMS: HDLS 250 Minotaur: 1-4 1100W lasers; 600 x 600 x 600 mm build volume HDLS 500 Tiamut: 4-9 1100W lasers; 1250 x 1250 x 1250 mm build volume HDLS 1000 Kraken: 9-25 1100W lasers; 2500 x 2500 x 2500 mm build volume HDLS 5000 Karathen: 64-144 1100W lasers; 5200 x 5200 x 5200 mm build volume

“UNFORTUNATELY, WE LOST CARL EARLY - I REALLY WANTED HIM TO SEE THE NEXT-GENERATION MACHINE.”

“We can help you spend millions of dollars and build a printer just like what’s out there,” Haute’s Chief Science Oﬃcer and co-founder Kevin Friesth remembers the Structured Polymers cohort saying, “but what you need to do is develop the next generation. If [3D printing] is

VOL 6 ISSUE 3 / www.tctmagazine.com / 023

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required by the aviation industry and be robust enough to achieve certification, it doesn’t want to wait around. The company will start by serving lower tech markets, manufacturing components like heat exchangers for ground source pumps and coolers for graphics processing units. “Some printer companies are still working on getting certified with [commercial aviation] four years later. It’s one of the hardest industries to get into,” says Friesth. “Why would we want to spend 200 million on a product that we might only be able to sell in three to five years?”

with AI-powered control systems and robotic devices, and scaling it up to sizes not seen before, it was more than a little frustrating that this was to be a steady development process, with much time waiting on other pieces of technology to get up to speed. “Until about five years ago, the controller technology hadn’t developed to the point we needed it, you didn’t have a lot of the sensors that we do today. And when you had the sensors, you didn’t have the micro controllers, so it’s been chicken and egg,” Friesth tells TCT. “It’s been frustrating trying to fight through that, but now we’re getting to the point that artificial intelligence, data buses, networking capabilities, the storage tech has finally caught up.” With Haute’s 2020 take on laser sintering technology, its robotic system is responsible for loading powder into an argon-filled melting system, which ensures no change of oxidation or moisture contamination, and later taking build cakes out of the machines for part removal and polishing. Job scheduling has been automated to help prioritize orders, while Haute’s set-up also includes an active feedback loop and

AI-driven learned response from previous builds across its entire fleet of HDLS machines. Here, a patentpending system of visual, thermal and ultrasonic imaging technology analyzes the fabrication of every part layer by layer, detecting and recording defects throughout.

APPLICATION

This infrastructure has been put in place to ensure Haute has a running start once operational later this summer. The roadmap has been laid out; the company knows which industries and applications it will target from the get-go, what comes further down the line, and how the company grows in response. “We’re going to go after the markets we know we can get into,” Freisth outlines. This means that, although Haute has designed its HDLS systems to deliver the quality and volumes

While commercial aviation is on the back burner for now, Haute will get to work right away on rocket engines, with an order to build several rocket engines for Odyssey Aerospace already placed. With its Karathen 5000 machine, which might not be in operation until next year, applications like this will be produced in one primary piece, with just the turbo pump component and piping added after. When Haute does tackle the aviation space, it looks likely that the company will set up a separate business unit, catering for what it anticipates being large demand and moving through the regulatory processes as the main Haute business focuses on low-tech components and rocket engines. This way, Haute believes it can solidify its base and allow the aviation business ‘the time to grow as it needs it’. That growth will rely on a collaboration of innovation and guidance. Friesth, while the business was located in Iowa, made the trip down to Texas frequently in the last seven years, regularly being turned around to do more work on the thermal control inside the machines or the AI around them, for example. Advice like this, Friesth and his team have been more than happy to take on board. It was encouragement from the Structured Polymers team that set Friesth on this endeavour, their standards that raised his, and guidance like the titbit from Deckard that follows that went a long way to deciding how to bring HDLS to market. “One of the first things Carl said to me,” Friesth recalls, “he said, ‘you can make a lot of printers, but you won’t make money on them. If you’re going to make money, you’re going to make it on the materials or you’re going to make it on the fabrications. I’ve got 30 years’ experience, I can tell you first-hand, if you try to go into the market selling printers, you’re going to be like all the rest and barely make a dime.’ “[Carl and Structured Polymers] have been very valuable mentors. They’ve ‘been there, done that’ with multiple machines, and we were able to [benefit] from their 100-plus years of knowledge. Unfortunately, we lost Carl early because I really wanted him to see the next generation machine, born from his original technology.”

VOL 6 ISSUE 3 / www.tctmagazine.com / 025

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JIGS AND INSPEX FIXTURES

3D PRINTING IN THE FASTLANE WORDS: Sam Davies

 SHOWN:

3D PRINTED JIG USED TO ACCURATELY POSITION FASTLINE BRANDING ON GLASS WING BARRIER

he businesspeople of big city corporates and the students at public universities often start their day in the same way, passing through a revolving door, a polite hello to those in reception, touching an ID card to an electronic reader and walking on through the glass wing barriers marked by the Fastlane Turnstiles brand to the rest of their day. How the branding of Fastlane made it onto the glass walls that help the likes of Facebook, Dell, Google, Manchester University and 7 World Trade Center keep their buildings secure has typically been no easy process. It was done by hand and by sight and if the positioning of the logo wasn’t done correctly it would have to be removed and re-positioned on the glass wing. This was a diﬃcult task to carry out repeatedly, time-consuming and occasionally stressful, and then 3D printing came along. The manufacturer of pedestrian entrance control systems first adopted the technology in 2018, after meeting UK reseller CREAT3D at an additive

“WITH THE EASE OF 3D PRINTING, WE'RE ABLE TO CREATE MORE JIGS TO HELP PRODUCTION” manufacturing trade show, in the form of a Mark Two machine. This platform, developed by Markforged, reinforces its Onyx material with carbon fiber, fiberglass and Kevlar, and was acquired by Fastlane to streamline its R&D efforts, designing parts at lower costs in less time.

Working with CREAT3D, some initial sample parts – one, to check the form of an R&D component, and the other, to assess the function of a manufactured component – were printed, with Fastlane said to have been impressed with the strength properties, surface finish and temperature resistance. After these initial parts, Fastlane installed the Mark Two in its engineering department, where it was immediately leveraged to print R&D components that typically would have been outsourced and produced in metal. Printing these kinds of parts was removing two weeks of lead time out of the design process and soon Fastlane’s production and assembly team were also looking to exploit the machine’s capabilities. From here, Fastlane’s application of 3D printing has snowballed, per CREAT3D’s Sabina Gonzalez-George and Simon Chandler.

VOL 6 ISSUE 3 / www.tctmagazine.com / 027

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JIGS AND INSPEX FIXTURES

“THE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT'S FUNCTIONS OF R&D, PRODUCTION SUPPORT, CUSTOM PROJECTS AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENTS HAVE ALL BEEN GREATLY SUPPORTED BY 3D PRINTING.”

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PART: BESPOKE FINGER VEIN HOUSING COST: £10 PER UNIT TIME: 12 HOURS

cost and time are only at a fraction of what traditional methods would normally be.”

IN POSITION

Often cited as additive manufacturing’s ‘low-hanging fruit’, production aids not only represented a quick win for Fastlane, with cost and time reductions achieved against traditionally manufactured jigs and fixtures but, by 3D printing a jig with a ‘locating edge’ to fit the exact geometry of the glass door, also solved the problem of positioning the company’s logo on those glass wing barriers. “The glass barriers were CNC cut, so we knew the barriers were fairly accurate to the [design] drawing; we modelled the jig using the flat and curved edges of the glass as datums in Autodesk Investor and were able to print it fairly quickly, which allowed production to attach the logo easily,” explained Fastlane Technical Manager Mike Lau. “[Additionally], the jig would be a fairly complicated and expensive part to make using traditional methods, with a lot of setup and machining out of costly material, so, as a one-off, 3D printing makes sense as the

This is the kind of tool Fastlane would have typically outsourced to be machined out of aluminum steel at a cost of around 150 GBP and delivered after two weeks. With 3D printing, Fastlane produced the part in six hours, a reduction of 96%, at a cost of under 7 GBP; a reduction of 95.5%; and has recorded right-first-time application with 100% accuracy of its branding on the glass wings. “With 3D printing, we can now usually produce a jig in less than a day, which has greatly reduced delays to production,” said Lau. “Also, as it was previously very expensive and time-consuming, we would limit the amount of jigs we had but now, with the ease of 3D printing, we’ve been able to create more types of jigs to help production.”.

'A MASSIVE IMPACT'

The company’s application of 3D printing for jigs and fixtures is now ‘extensive’, according to Lau, with R&D parts also representing a large number of internal print jobs. Fastlane has also

identified several end-use production components that can be produced on the Mark Two, albeit at low volumes, with further work to be carried out to ascertain whether parts needed at larger volumes can be 3D printed. Whichever category of parts ends up requiring the greater application of the technology, Fastlane’s use of 3D printing is now broad across the business, and the benefits of the technology extend to each of its customers too. “The engineering department's functions of R&D, production support, custom projects and continuous improvements have all been greatly supported by having the 3D printing capability. Production has benefitted by having 3D printed parts that have greatly improved ease and time to assemble. Customers have seen benefits as we are more agile in being able to integrate third-party equipment to our products,” finished Lau. “The impact has been massive.”

VOL 6 ISSUE 3 / www.tctmagazine.com / 029

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Executive INSPEXQ&A

FRIED VANCRAEN ON CREATING REAL SUSTAINABILITY WE SPEAK TO MATERIALISE CEO FRIED VANCRAEN ABOUT THE MOMENT HE REALIZED AM REPRESENTED A PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE 30 YEARS OF INNOVATION THAT FOLLOWED. TCT: Materialise turns 30 this year, can you tell us about the early days starting the company? Fried Vancraen: I was working as a research engineer at the Belgium Centre of Metal Manufacturing Engineering and that is where I came in contact with […] the launch of the first 3D printer from 3D systems […] and immediately, I got interested. Then, half a year later, approximately, I sold the first printer in Europe, in Bremen, Germany and that is the moment that I really got a click, this is a paradigm shift. This is not a milling machine or a turning machine on which a computer has been placed to control it. This is a manufacturing technology that is designed to be controlled by a computer and with my experience in economic justification at a time of flexible manufacturing cells, CNC machines and so on, I knew that the industry was waiting for something more simple that would produce more shapes in a more flexible way. That's why I decided first to talk with my boss to try to get such a machine in our research center and he said 'we have no budget.' So, then it came down to the fact that I did some market analysis and we found that there could be a market for it. Together with my wife, we decided to set up a company and start our own business providing services with this first printer from 3D Systems. TCT: Sustainability is set to be a major focus for Materialise at this year’s Materialise World Summit. Can you elaborate on what sustainability in AM means to you? FV: We are proud that we defined, from the opening reception of Materialise, our mission statement

that we wanted to use our knowhow in 3D printing for a better and a healthier world [...] we see this just as an extension of an evolution we have been in already for a long time because sustainability is now another word to define that better and healthier world. I would say that it's important to notice that while additive manufacturing has the potential to create sustainable solutions, simply by its nature, because it's growing products, rather than subtractive technologies that waste a lot of materials by definition, it is not necessarily the case. It's important that people make a knowledgeable choice for sustainability and that's also where, with Materialise, we want to focus on, that we not just take sustainability for granted, but that we really matter and that we really compare to the existing technologies, and that we make sure we create, what I would say, real sustainability. TCT: What are your thoughts on the role AM can play during the current coronavirus crisis, and are there any lessons the industry could learn from this? FV: I think the positive contribution of the 3D printing industry in this corona crisis will hopefully be an accelerator once the crisis is over to use it also in the sustainability context because we have this now short-term threat, but we have the long-term threat of climate impact and social disturbance. The way some people are being treated very well by life or treated very poorly in some of the developing countries is something we have to resolve, and that's a long-term crisis that we have to tackle. I think that 3D printing can play a constructive role in this long-term challenge, where sustainability is the answer [...] the corona crisis is the kind of prototyping project, I might call it, for what we need to do in the long-term. Listen to the interview in full on our Additive Insight podcast: mytct.co/FriedVancraen

VOL 6 ISSUE 3 / www.tctmagazine.com / 031

TCT EAB INSPEX COLUMN

JEREMY PULLIN, HEAD OF AM AND DESIGN TO MANUFACTURE AT SARTORIUS AND TCT EXPERT ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER RECOUNTS A CAUTIONARY TALE OF POWDER HANDLING AND KNIGHTS OF THE REALM.

t was early April 2010 and at the time I was working for Renishaw PLC in charge of Rapid Manufacturing. It was a great place for engineers to work but inevitably it was also a great place for people to do private jobs. It was, however absolutely unheard of for the Chairman/CEO Sir David McMurtry to ask for anything that was not very strictly work based. Color me amazed when he somewhat shyly asked me if I could make something for him to give to his friend as a 90th birthday gift. I suggested that we make a cut-out model of a radial engine - Sir David agreed - and the file, which we had originally been generously given by EOS was scaled down to 80% of its original size, and modified with the requisite text and printed on our EOS P385 running glass-filled nylon 12. When Friday arrived, and the rest of the department had all gone home for their 12:30 finish, I was surprised when Sir David appeared in the office and asked what was happening with the birthday gift. I assured him that we had put the part on to print and that it had completed. I told him that my SLS operator would break it out from the build cake, clean it and it would be up in his office ready nice and early on Monday morning. “Well, it’s actually his birthday today,” he said, “and I am off to see him now” I went with him into the SLS printer room where my pride and joy EOS machine sat, with the man that had given me the money to buy it and had to break the news to him that there was no way he was going to get his gift. I pointed at the powder cake sitting in the breakout chamber as I looked anywhere except in his direction and said with a voice muffled by the baffles of shame, “Ummm well it’s in there, David but the powder cake has to cool down before we can do anything with it. That’s going to be a few hours yet I’m afraid.” To my amazement Sir David stuck his finger into the powder cake and cheerfully said “Ah it will be all right, let’s get it out shall we”?

032 / www.tctmagazine.com / VOL 6 ISSUE 3

You should never break parts out of an SLS build cake until they have cooled down. They need to cool down slowly in their own time so that they don’t warp and become damaged as they fully solidify. ECONOMIES OF SCALE The partially hollow nature of the part meant that it had lot of powder inside that was proving tricky to remove as I didn’t want to shock it thermally by blasting it with too much air. Eventually though there was only a dusting of powder over the part. “Right,” I said, “let’s get the mechanism moving shall we”? I tried the turning handle, it was stuck solid. I smiled at a confused looking Sir David in a ‘don’t worry this is normal’ sort of way and wondered if I was too old to start a new career at McDonalds. I realized that we had never actually printed this part at 80% scale so the clearance gaps carefully optimized by the original designer were no longer big enough. I froze at this point and just thought ‘or Burger King. I do enjoy a double whopper after all’. I grabbed my trusty penknife as I tried to take the part back off him, he simply said, “Oh good idea” and took the penknife off me. To my relief the thing actually started to move. He smiled at me, generously thanked me and cheerfully wished me a happy weekend as he went off. This is when I realized that he had actually enjoyed the whole episode. I guess the lessons here are always fully understand your timescales, always take post processing into account for your process times and never forget that messing around with parameters such as scaling could have disastrous knock on effects.

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