The Summer 2024 issue of Metal AM magazine is out now!

Friday, 26 July 2024

 This issue includes the following deep-dive articles:

 

BMW Group: Laying the foundations for the application of metal Additive Manufacturing in the automotive industry

The very existence of BMW Group’s state-of-the-art Additive Manufacturing Campus, located close to Munich, speaks volumes about the potential of AM technology in the automotive industry.

In April, Metal AM magazine’s Technical Consultant, Martin McMahon, and Managing Editor, Nick Williams, had the opportunity to visit the campus. As is revealed here, they discovered an operation that not only functions as an application development centre and centralised location for the BMW Group’s AM expertise, but also operates as a model AM factory built around the concepts of productivity and automation.

Predicting the metal Additive Manufacturing market – and breaking the hype cycle

Additive Manufacturing has experienced significant growth over the past thirty years. However, many market players have found themselves disappointed with current market volumes compared to earlier projections for the industry. Today, the AM industry is at an intriguing stage. Depending on your perspective, it can appear to be either declining or thriving. How do these perspectives align, and how is its current status represented by data and forecasts?

AMPOWER’s Maximilian Munsch, Eric Wycisk and Matthias Schmidt-Lehr share their assessment and consider the challenges of predicting a highly-complex industry.

Read full article online here.

China’s thriving metal Additive Manufacturing industry: An outsider’s perspective

China’s Additive Manufacturing industry is growing at extraordinary speed, driven forward by intense domestic competition and AM technology’s role in the country’s national manufacturing strategy.

Based on a recent visit to the TCT Asia 2024 exhibition, Joseph Kowen shares an outsider’s perspective on what is happening in the Chinese metal AM industry. Are Chinese AM machines now rivalling those from the West in terms of capability, and how is an increasingly complex geopolitical situation impacting the dynamics of the AM industry?

Enhancing the productivity of Additive Manufacturing facilities through PBF-LB automation The metal Additive Manufacturing industry has significantly increased machine productivity in recent years. In the case of Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB), efforts have primarily focused on what happens inside the build chamber.

Here, Sebastian Becker, Head of Product Management Metal, EOS GmbH, reports on how, with Grenzebach Maschinenbau GmbH and Volkmann GmbH, the company is looking outside of the build chamber. Thanks to automation, machine time utilisation can be taken from an estimated 60% to nearer 90% through rapid automated build box exchange and fully automated powder removal and recycling.

Award-winning metal AM parts from the MPIF’s 2024 Design Excellence Awards For many decades, North America’s Metal Powder Industries Federation (MPIF) has organised its PM Design Excellence Awards competition in order to showcase the capabilities of the Powder Metallurgy industry. With the growing commercial success of metal powder-based Additive Manufacturing, the competition is seeing an ever larger number of entrants from this sector.

Award-winning parts in this year’s competition include parts not only produced by Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion, but also a wide range of innovative sinter-based AM processes.

Performance of eddy currents for the in-situ detection of defects during PBF-LB metal AM

In this joint study by Carl Zeiss AG, AMiquam SA, and EOS GmbH, the performance of eddy currents as a tool for the in-situ detection of defects in Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) has been assessed.

Process variations, including lack of fusion and keyhole formation could be detected in-situ, as well as individual defects as small as 0.3 mm post-build and post-polishing.

Here, Jonatan Wicht, Harald Krauss, Frank Widulle, Julian Schulz, and Edson Costa Santos, Alain Berthoud, and Bernard Revaz present their latest findings.

 

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