Page 13 - 3D Metal Printing magazine Fall 2022

for customers serving the oil and gas indus- try. But since then, its AM customer roll has diversified plenty—into the aerospace/ space, turbomachinery and automotive markets. Catalyzing that diversification, says Corliss, has been the addition of six Velo3D Sapphire LPBF AM machines.
“While we’ve operated LPBF machines for the last 13 years, we find that the unique capabilities of the Sapphire allow us to print without compromise,” Corliss explains.
What Does Printing
Without Compromise Mean?
“While we’ve worked hard to educate our customers on how to design for AM, when we’re working with designs that are less than optimal we find that the ability to use the Sapphire machines for sup- port-free printing provides a huge advan- tage,” Corliss shares. “And, the machines can print to near-net-shape geometry. We find that customers outside of the oil and gas industry often present us with more challenging AM parts, and they tend to develop new parts at a very rapid pace. The Sapphire machines allow us to keep up with the pace of new-product devel-
opment and the need for prototyping. And, parts built with these machines typ- ically require less post-processing than with our other LPBF machines, allowing us to shorten our turnaround times.”
And, while its first AM machine had one laser, Knust-Godwin has graduated to machines with multiple lasers—as many as eight—and consistently looked to up its game by upsizing the build cham- ber. For example, three of its Sapphires have build chambers measuring 315 mm round with a 400-mm height, with plans to soon convert one of those to what Velo3D calls a 1MZ machine, extending the Z axis to a full meter. “We’ll use that retrofitted model to print Inconel,” Corliss shares, noting that three of Knust-God- win’s Sapphire machines print in titanium, and another—one of its newest—prints CRCop-42, for space-industry customers.
The newest Sapphire to hit the floor landed in mid-2022: a Sapphire XC, with a 600-mm round build chamber and 550- mm height, and equipped with eight 1- kW lasers. It’s also used to print Inconel. “Inconel 718 is a very homogeneous mate- rial that lends itself very well to 3D print- ing,” Corliss explains. “It meets the
requirements of a lot of applications in the oil and gas, turbomachinery, and space industries, helping us reach a broad- er customer base.”
Why eight lasers, when all of the compa- ny’s other machines have no more than four? “We’re looking to build larger parts using multiple beams on the part at the same time, for speed and to make us more competitive,” Corliss explains. “And, we’re also looking at printing parts that might have been as many as 50 or 60 compo- nents assembled or welded together and making one big AM part using all eight
lasers to print.”
Multiple lasers also helps when printing
smaller parts, Corliss offers. “Where a stan- dard Sapphire, for example, might only be able to run six part builds at a time on the build plate,” he says, “with the XC we might be able to process 32 builds on the plate, which really reduces our costs.”
Among some of the Velo3D machine options that have gained favor at the com- pany: the noncontact recoater and in-situ metrology sensors.
“For some of the fragile parts we’re printing, the noncontact recoater is huge,” Corliss shares. “Otherwise, we couldn’t build some of the more sensitive and thin- walled parts. And, the sensors prove very useful in providing a digital certification of each build once it’s completed. They allow us to create valid print reports, and they will stop the machine during a build
if they start seeing issues. Several of our customers have begun to rely on the build files that the machines create; we get layer-by-layer infor- mation for each build that we can
go back and review, validate the process, and identify any issues.”
Prototype to Production Evolution
When Knust-Godwin initially launched its AM business, Corliss explains, his team would take on a prototype project, validate it for pro- duction and get it out in the field. “There often was a significant devel- opment gap from when we would complete the prototype to production,”
Multiple multi-laser AM machines allow Knust-Godwin to more efficiently serve the oil and gas industry, including production of these Inconel 718 choke-valve components.
Printing Without Compromise 3D
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