The New Era of Manufacturing
Additive manufacturing or 3D printing presents a series of benefits in manufacturing an automobile component by offering design freedom while creating complex yet lightweight parts. It also enables the designers to go through several iterations cost-effectively before deciding on the final product. Hence these advances have opened doors for newer designs, cleaner, lighter and safer products.
What is Additive Manufacturing?
Additive manufacturing is the Industrial production name for 3D printing. It is a computer-controlled manufacturing process that can create three-dimensional objects by depositing materials layer by layer.
Role of Additive Manufacturing in Automobiles
Traditional manufacturing involves metal cutting, joining, casting, and long lead-time CNC production. But the additive manufacturing can easily replace these expensive processes. Additionally, the tools like grips, jigs, and fixtures can also be optimized and produced at a low cost using this technology.
Benefits of Additive Manufacturing in the Automotive Industry
- Rapid prototyping during Research and Development: Additive manufacturing helps in this process to quickly create a working prototype just in a few hours, instead of turnarounds for several days or more.
- Weight Reduction: Weight reduction is desirable in many vehicles because
It is a crucial factor in improving fuel efficiency. It is also essential for an electric vehicle since lower weight can mean more range that is longer battery life between charges. - Less wastage of Material: The additive manufacturing process uses only the material needed to create the part. In the case of Subtractive manufacturing, the material is to be taken from the raw stock to obtain the desired product, which must then be handled and destroyed correctly.
- Shortening and Simplifying the enormous automotive supply chains: Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) work with many other suppliers to source the different components are constantly seeking ways to trim their supply chain. Therefore, companies can take advantage of additive manufacturing to transform supply chains by producing on-site.
Common Additive manufacturing process in Automotive Applications:
- Direct Metal Laser Sintering ( DMLS): DMLS, also known as Metal 3D printing. It is an additive layer technology that uses a computer-controlled, high-power laser beam to melt and fuse the layers of metallic powder. DMLS includes the materials such as stainless steel, Maraging steel, Inconel, Aluminium, Titanium, etc. And the parts like gearbox, grills, fenders, fuel tanks, heat exchangers, etc., are manufactured using this method.
- Electron Beam Melting (EBM): The EBM technique uses an electron beam in a high vacuum as its power source, which selectively melts the metal powder bed to print the design of the object layer by layer. The parts like pump impeller, wheel rims, compressor components, frames, turbine blades, etc., are manufactured using this method.
Conclusion:
The additive manufacturing process can produce optimized, lower weight, and cost-effective components without compromising the quality of the product. It had also opened the way for a variety of innovative designs that were previously impossible to produce using traditional manufacturing methods.
References :
- 3D opportunity in the automotive industry: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/additive-manufacturing-3d-opportunity-in-automotive/DUP_707-3D-Opportunity-Auto-Industry_MASTER.pdf
- The role of AM in the automotive industry: https://www.3dnatives.com/en/the-role-of-am-in-the-automotive-industry/#!
- DMLS vs. SLS: Which is Better for Your Needs? : https://additivemanufacturingllc.com/uncategorized/dmls-vs-sls-which-is-better-for-your-needs/
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