European premiere: Additional new 3D printer boosts MAN ES’s additive manufacturing capacity at Oberhausen site.
The new geometric freedom makes it possible to further optimize designs in terms of availability, performance, lifespan and maintenance.
Dawn of a new additive era
Owing to the high degree of product variance, the possibilities offered by metallic 3D printing for MAN ES are virtually unlimited. “Until now, the enormous potential far exceeded the available manufacturing capacity,” Anders Such, Head of Additive Manufacturing in Oberhausen, explains. Expanding our in-house manufacturing capacity will broaden the component spectrum, and the new print bed size of 600 mm in all three dimensions will make it possible to manufacture small housings additively, cutting their delivery time by up to a factor of four at the same cost. Twelve 1,000-watt lasers operating in parallel see to it that the new printer manufactures components eight times faster than the 280 (with its two 400-watt lasers). This makes the SLM 600 the most productive 3D printer for LPBF (Laser Powder Bed Fusion).
‘Think additive’ – boost for research and development
MAN’s additive know-how expands with every component, and the possibilities also make a leap with every printer generation. “The productivity boost and larger print bed volume are extending the range of potential applications,” Michael Kleinhenz, Head of Production and Supply Chain, explains. “The new printer is being used both to manufacture existing business cases more economically and to industrialize further applications.” Anders Such lists other advantages that AM offers in addition to the cost benefits: “The new geometric freedom makes it possible to further optimize designs in terms of availability, performance, lifespan and maintenance.” As one of many more examples at MAN, AM is used in integrally geared compressors. What is more, manufacturing process development is currently in progress on additively manufactured impellers for hot gas expanders in Industries.
At MAN ES, LPBF is currently used to make machine parts for compressors (resonators), turbines (impeller segments, combustion chambers), two-stroke engines (precombustion chambers), turbochargers (damper elements) and four-stroke engines (injection nozzles, precombustion chambers). This means that AM now covers our entire range of machinery in Newbuild and Service.
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