Foreign media estimates: 3D printing technology or billions of dollars for the automotive industry

Foreign media estimates that 3D printing can save billions of dollars if used in the automotive industry. And can break through the technical limitations of 3D printing. Lonnie Love, Corporate Fellow and Project Leader at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, attended the American Automotive Research Center in Traverse City, Michigan on July 31st. (Management Briefing Seminars) organized by Center for Automotive Research. He said at the meeting that 3D printing tooling is promising, and its results have already begun to appear.

Engineers and researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have produced a tooling that can be used to make automotive hoods. 3D printing relies on Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) technology. In 2014, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Cincinnati, Local Motors and other partners adopted BAAM technology. It took only a few days to manufacture a 3D printing vehicle, then optimized the process and built a 3D printing technology. Shelby Cobra sports car.

Love said: "Printing a vehicle is a multi-million dollar market, and printing tooling is a multi-billion dollar market." The automotive industry spends billions of dollars a year on tooling, usually requiring steel molds. Or dies, and the above-mentioned molds are usually time consuming, and the cost of acquisition and maintenance are also quite high. Love said that 3D is a good solution, and using this technology will shorten the production time of molds and stampers.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been a compression mold for the Ford producing country and is working with the filmmaker Diversified Tooling Group on additive tooling.

Love said: "The company is trying to achieve this goal in a few days, without spending weeks or months plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in money. The company is undergoing major changes at a pivotal time in the US manufacturing industry. The company is very optimistic about the prospects of 3D printing tooling, the market for additive manufacturing will become very large, the growth rate will be very fast, and the price will become relatively low."

The study focused on plastic and metal additive manufacturing, while 3D printed parts required finishing operations on the surface, but Love said it could be machined or coated to make the surface smoother and shiny.

(Editor)