Page 15 - 3D Metal Printing Winter 2018

Supersonic Deposition Prints Metal Parts in Minutes
Spee3D debuted to formnext attendees a new metal 3D printer that leverages “supersonic deposition technology to deliver manufacturing-grade printing at production speeds,” said company officials. Designed for scalable, just-in-time production, the machine reportedly prints metal parts in a matter of minutes, compared to the industry
standard of hours or
days. Rather than using
heat to melt metal pow-
ders, the machine’s
patented technology
uses supersonic deposi-
tion in which a rocket
nozzle accelerates air to
three times the speed of
sound to deliver manu-
facturing-grade metal
and high-density parts.
Researchers at Charles
Darwin University, in Australia,
use the machine to print aluminum and copper alloys. www.spee3d.com
GE Additive Also Forays into Large-Part Printing
Another large-format machine on display starred at the booth of GE Additive, which unveiled its beta machine dubbed Atlas (additive technology large-area system). It boasts a 1.1 by 1.1-m build plate and a 30-cm Z axis, although engineers
Materialise Software Supports Support Generation
On the software front, Materialise debuted its e-Stage for Metal, reportedly the first soft- ware that automatically generates support structures for metal-AM parts. For more than 10 years the company has provided automated support-generation software, called e-Stage for Stereolithography and DLP technology. With the introduction of e-Stage for Metal, automated support generation becomes avail- able for titanium, aluminum and stainless-steel
parts. Compared to manual support genera- tion, company representatives say that users can reduce the time to design supports by as much as 90 percent; reduce the time to remove supports by as much as 50 percent; and cut the time to finish parts by as much as 20 per- cent. In addition, the software will dramatically reduce the amount of powder trapped in the support structures.
Materialise also used formnext to highlight its recent license agreement with Simufact Engineering GmbH. The collaboration allows users of Materialise Magics software to apply Simufact Additive simulation-software routines to better control the prebuild process. In addi- tion, support structures in the Simufact soft- ware will be represented with Materialise Mag- ics features so that Magics users will be able to predict errors before production. Company representatives explained that the software partnership will reduce the number of proto- types required during process development, as well as improve part quality. www.materialise.com
New Metal-AM Technology 3D
we spoke with stressed that the design is easily scal- able to allow a sig- nificantly larger Z axis. The setup at formnext featured a 1-kW laser (reportedly scala- ble to include additional lasers). Engi- neers described the use of dis- crete dosing to machine includes process and machine-health monitoring enabled by GE’s cloud-based Predix oper- ating system. Materials in play for this machine include cobalt-chromes and
superalloys such as Hastelloy and Incoloy.
We learned that the company is targeting applications that require large,
complex parts, and that the first few beta machines are being evaluated by a small group of customers, with more planned for delivery in 2018. www.ge.com/additive
save on powder consumption and related costs. And the Atlas
3DMPmag.com
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