Additive Manufacturing

FEB 2014

Modern Machine Shop and MoldMaking Technology present ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING, a quarterly supplement reporting on the use of additive processes to manufacture functional parts. More at additivemanufacturinginsight.com.

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The possibilities for additive manufacturing have been growing at a fast pace and, according to one technology player, the industry is now focused on "bringing the buzz down to practicality." The Euromold trade fair in Germany last December offered an array of unique and exciting AM displays, but the real story was the actual technologies and applications for the manufacture of functional parts, including end-use components and industrial tooling. On the following pages is a sampling of what we saw at this show. Molds and Cores Built in Days without Tooling This photo shows a diesel engine cylinder head, along with part of the sand mold and some of the sand cores that were required to cast it. This sand mold and the cores were created using a 3D printing process developed by Voxeljet. According to Tom Mueller, principal of Thomas J. Mueller and Associates, casting such a cylinder head requires several tools, including patterns for the cope and drag (the top and bottom parts of the sand mold), and a number of core boxes (molds used to create sand cores that will form undercut features in the head). This process can take thousands of dollars and several weeks to complete. Castings with complex fow situations, like cylinder heads and pumps, often can only be optimized by an iterative design-build-test-redesign process, he says. However, the cost and time required to create the tooling for each design iteration makes the process very costly and time consuming. With the Voxeljet process, molds and cores can be built without tooling in a few days, making this iterative process more cost- and time-effective. In fact, a designer can now simultaneously evaluate several design alternatives to further cut the time required to optimize the design, Mueller says. Cost-Effective Casting ExOne's largest additive manufacturing machines print parts in sand for use in metal casting. Making casting mold components directly in sand, without any need for a pattern or core box, enables not only more cost-effective casting as the caption at left describes, but also casting of complex geometries that would not have been practical or even possible with conventional casting molds. The sand-printed part above is an example of an intricate, core-like component that was easy to produce through 3D printing. AdditiveManufacturingInsight.com February 2014 — 9

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