ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING is the magazine devoted to industrial applications of 3D printing and digital layering technology. We cover the promise and the challenges of this technology for making functional tooling and end-use production parts.
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MAY 2016 Additive Manufacturing 12 TAKING SHAPE At a recent open house event, additive manufacturing machine maker Arcam wel- comed investors in the NASDAQ-listed frm to the company's new U.S. headquarters in Woburn, Massachusetts. President and CEO Magnus René, who spoke at length at the event, recently relocated from the company's home in Sweden to be based at this new ofce. The reason for his move, he told the group, is because the United States is the company's "biggest market and biggest opportunity." The chief market sectors for the company's electron beam manufacturing (EBM) technology are orthopedic implants and aerospace components. These two product types have important traits that make them ideal for additive, René told investors. Both are characterized by high material costs and low production volumes, and both stand to beneft signifcantly from the expanded design freedom that AM provides. Indeed, he says, the adoption of AM is at only the very earliest stages in both industries— though the starting point for Arcam has been diferent in these two diferent sectors. In orthopedics, he says, the use of EBM has improved part performance through design freedom. Implant surface geometries formed through AM provide for superior fusing with the patient's bone compared to traditional implant surfaces created through spray technology. Additive implants have been adopted and are in use today for this reason. Building on this success, he expects AM to be adopted next for the production of "outlier" implant part numbers made in such low volumes as to be awkward to produce through conventional manufacturing. From there, it will be a short step for implant makers to bring this same approach to manufacturing more standard parts, applying AM in many cases to eliminate the need for forging and reduce the need for machining. By contrast, in aerospace, he says the point of entry has been essentially at the op- posite end of this progression. The initial uses of AM for aerospace parts have served primarily to replace standard processes in the production of parts that are particularly difcult to make. Examples of this are still coming—a titanium aluminide aircraft turbine blade made from EBM as a replacement for casting will go into production in 2018. Then, he says, the use of AM for the sake of design freedom in this industry will come next. Aerospace companies will build on the successes with current part designs by leveraging AM to realize new parts that ofer improved performance. But even the volume of these current parts presents important challenges. Just the aforementioned blade—a single part number for a single aircraft engine maker—will require 30 to 40 EBM machines to satisfy the eventual production demand. René says this illustrates why the next step for Arcam will have to be a further "industrialization" of both the company and its technology. That is, the company will have to prepare to meet the demand as additive-manufactured parts increasingly move beyond develop- ment and into full production. Arcam CEO Speaks of Promise and Progress in Aerospace and Orthopedic Industries By Peter Zelinski Arcam CEO Magnus René described the company's progress in market sectors illustrated by the EBM parts seen here (implants and a turbine engine blade).