Page 19 - 3D Metal Printing Fall 2017

Educated AM Customers 3D
abandon R&D, especially applied R&D— we want to continue to push the envelope and help advance the technology for our customers. However, at the same time we hope to conduct more production-ready projects for our customers. And, we do learn quite a lot by developing processes and procedures to make real parts for them.
“That said, we see the appetite growing rapidly for metal AM in repair applications and for rebuilding of large parts—these are exciting, emerging opportunities,” he continues. “To that end, earlier this year we purchased two new metal-AM machines designed to address the repair and rebuild market: a hybrid AM machine combining machining with powder-fed laser cladding; and a high-pressure cold-spray machine that also deposits powder—fed through a heated inert-gas supersonic nozzle. I see repair applications for metal AM as being faster to market than the building of new parts. The processes
should be simpler to qualify, and have shorter development cycles. We believe that the ability of the hybrid machine will open many doors to new business in the repair arena, in particular of large parts. Key market opportunities include oil and gas, nuclear and DoD work.”
Two New Machines
Sabo specified the hybrid-AM system to offer the largest part capacity he could find. It features a Haas VF11 multiaxis machining center with a 10-ft. bed, out- fitted with an Ambit multitasking system (from Hybrid Manufacturing Technolo- gies) that allows a variety of processing heads to dock to the spindle. That includes, in this case, a cladding head that combines a 1000-W fiber laser and a pow- der-feed setup. The process: Use the cladding head to build up material—on new parts or to repair worn or damaged surfaces, then switch to a milling opera-
tion to finish the part.
The CTC cold-spray setup, designed
to deposit metal powder at temperatures below the base-material melting point, is a compact, portable VRC Metal Systems Gen III Max machine, which uses three 15-kW heaters to accelerate the process gas. As the gas accelerates, metal powders are introduced into the gas stream, achiev- ing supersonic particle velocities. The sys- tem mounts on wheels for mobility; CTC locates it in a controlled-environment, soundproof booth that includes a wet- vacuum system to safely dispose of unfused airborne powder. Operators manipulate the deposition head manually, or they can mount the head to a robotic arm. It can be used to spray a litany of powder materials—aluminum, copper, nickel, titanium and others—for part repair and near-net part production, and for applying performance coatings.
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3D Metal Printing | Heat Treatment | Machining
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Materials
Titanium Aluminum Inconel 625/718 Maraging Steel Cobalt Chrome Stainless 15-5/17-4
Printers
11 - EOS M280
1 - EOS M400 2 - CL M1
1 - CL M2
3D printed Implatable Talus made of CoCr
3D printed Aerospace part made of Inconel 718
Metal Additive Manufacturing
Prototype and Production
ISO 9001 / AS9100 / ITAR / FFL
Metal Injection Molding Plastic Injection Molding
Magnesium Injection Molding Metal Stamping
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