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From Rapid Prototyping to Rapid Manufacturing
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The realization that 3D printing is more than trivial for mainstream manufacturing.
For many of us in the manufacturing industry, that weren’t early adopters of 3D printing, it’s time to accept that additive manufacturing has a viable place among traditional manufacturing processes. I always viewed the 3D printing industry as a novelty. I read about the medical research of 3D printing soft tissues and the promise of printing entire organs one day. But, beyond the ultra-high-end research with 3D printing my opinion was that the additive manufacturing hype was a bit over-inflated. To me, 3D Printing would only prosper in prototype and niche emerging markets. Not in the machine shop where the floor shakes and hot chips of metal fly. Time and materials reign supreme in manufacturing, so how could 3D Printing make any noticeable impact?
The emerging markets, for 3D printing, are quickly opening up as anticipated. The surprise to me is 3D printing, now synonymous with Additive Manufacturing, is getting traction in mainstream manufacturing. There was much anticipation for the debut of the Mori Seiki LASERTEC 65 Additive and Subtractive Machine at this year’s IMTS (as mentioned last month by my colleague, Joe Gesualdi http://www.saratechinc.com/the-international-manufacturing-technology-show/). Bringing equipment like this to market demonstrates that additive manufacturing belongs in the conversation of conventional manufacturing processes. It joins the ranks of other more established non-traditional machining techniques like Electric Discharge Machining and Laser Beam Machining (although additive manufacturing isn’t actually ‘machining’).
In the last two weeks, more than half of the companies I visited are putting additive manufacturing into their processes. Packaging companies are rapid manufacturing foams with specific density variation throughout the volumes for desired structural properties. Foundries have turned to rapid manufacturing for lost-wax and lost-foam castings. Major airplane OEMs are rapid manufacturing on-demand parts made of custom designed polymers. And now, machine shops can utilize additive and subtractive manufacturing to generate once impossible shapes and features. Additive manufacturing seems to be everywhere I look. It also unlocks design engineers from the constraints of designing for manufacturability. Shape optimization software, such as Inspire from solidThinking, is more relevant than ever for designers now that organic shapes can legitimately be manufactured.
Selective Laser Melting (SLM) and Electron Beam Melting (EBM) have brought a new wave of industrial applications for 3D printing. As SLM and EBM advances to offer a wider variety of consumable metals, I expect additive manufacturing will be commonplace in shops that deal with hard to machine materials. This could bring down the cost to manufacture high strength materials and open the high strength market to more products. I may not have immediately jumped on the 3D printing bandwagon, but I’m on-board now. Additive manufacturing is gaining momentum and it’s already making a noticeable impact in the manufacturing community.
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Labels: 3D Printing, rapid manufacturing, rapid prototyping, Saratech