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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Mold with Eight Complex, Conformal Cooling Channels via Laser Melting The conformal temperature control arrangement pictured here requires complicated design work—eight outlets of 3 mm (0.12 inch) in diameter and practically identical fow conditions branching out from a 10-mm (0.40-inch) inlet. According to Renishaw and LBC Engineering, this design guarantees uniform, highly turbulent coolant fow and effcient heat transport in each channel. These inserts were laser-generated on a Renishaw machine with a 0.5-mm (0.02-inch) margin per wall. Conventionally made inserts cannot usually be pre-worked in such detail before hardening, so this means reduced hardening work for cost savings that partly offsets the cost of the laser melting process. LMD Toughens Automotive Dies Laser metal deposition (LMD) can increase automotive die life and reduce setup times. That is what researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, toolmaker Mühlhoff Um-formtechnik GmbH and other Green Carbody Technologies Innovation Alliance (InnoCaT) partners set out to prove during Euromold with their new universal, reproducible, industrial-use LMD process. During LMD, a laser beam carefully melts the surface of the die and the fller material to produce a local layer that guards against wear on the die surface. This treatment, which is completed in fractions of a second, is designed to increase the robustness and resilience of the stainless steel die at critical points. The group rebuilt a conventional fve-axis milling machine (pictured here)—which can be installed within the current manufacturing process—for the automated LMD of forming dies. According to Fraunhofer, this processes increases the lifetime of dies by more than 150 percent, improves the quality of components and makes it possible to plan setup times with greater precision. Another key part of the LMD system is integrated software that enables the laser surface treatment processes to be controlled in a clear, reproducible way. All necessary process parameters are transmitted to the machine without the need for any interface. Processes can be simulated in detail and optimized in advance of actual processing operations. AdditiveManufacturingInsight.com February 2014 — 13

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