A growing number of manufacturers are leveraging additive manufacturing to overcome costly product performance issues, build stronger components (with fewer parts), and reduce weight. Images: Burloak Technologies

In recent years, additive manufacturing (AM) has rapidly grown in popularity—and it’s easy to understand why.

Because this swiftly evolving technology allows companies to print parts “from the ground up,” a growing number of manufacturers are leveraging it to overcome costly product performance issues, build stronger components (with fewer parts), and reduce weight. Others are using it to enhance their operations by streamlining supply chains, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and accelerating design cycles and time to market.

The benefits are substantial. However, navigating this relatively nascent manufacturing terrain is anything but easy. For one, selecting the right technology often is a feat in and of itself. And while the technology has advanced tremendously in recent years, there’s still a lack of standardization among AM printers.

Additionally, successful AM integration involves considerably more than just purchasing an AM printer. Countless ancillary processes go into producing AM components, including Designing for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM), selecting appropriate materials (with the required properties), and conducting the necessary post-processing procedures, such as precision machining or heat treatment.

Many things need to be considered when selecting the right AM equipment and executing a full AM service.

Before you think about purchasing an AM machine, it’s essential to understand what types of parts you plan to use it for—and how it will fit into your AM journey. This is critical for a few reasons.

First, the size of the part will dictate the type of system you need. For example, some larger parts may require laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) technology which has more lasers. And, if you intend to manufacture these parts at scale, your system must be large enough to accommodate for that.

Second, you need to know what type of materials you’ll be using because most machines only are compatible with certain types of materials. Additionally, it’s helpful to know if you’ll be doing straight production or custom manufacturing, because some machines are easier to use than others based on the application.

Last, it’s essential to consider your feature size or resolution, which will dictate the specific machine features that you need.

Once you’ve clearly determined the answers to these questions, it’s easier to narrow down the equipment suitable for your purposes. When deciding between AM machines and technologies, you’ll want to focus on three factors: reliability, repeatability, and productivity.

AM parts require precision machining and finishing to complete the process.

So how do you know which of your manufactured parts are best suited to AM and which AM technology brands are optimal for your unique applications? This is where a familiarity with the ever-evolving AM landscape can come in handy—and why outsourcing your AM services to experienced, dedicated suppliers often is better than doing your AM work in-house.

Ideally, an AM expert will have spent years researching the AM technology market and invested in an extensive array of machinery that can fit virtually any AM application. In most cases they won’t be loyal to a particular brand but will select machines based on particular specialties—investing in one line that excels at fine features, for instance, and another that’s better for large parts.

Because these companies live and breathe AM, they’re also up to date on the latest supplier improvements and constantly upgrade their equipment offerings to keep pace with hardware and software advancements. As new equipment comes on the market, the entire industry takes a leap forward.

So if you’re stuck with in-house technology that only prints a limited number of parts, and your competitors are using an external provider whose machines can print at a higher capacity, you can quickly fall behind. Additionally, things like laser optics, electronics, and other AM technology components wear over time, which leads to high maintenance costs.

The knowledge required to select the right equipment and keep pace in the current AM landscape is more than most manufacturers can accomplish on their own—but that’s just one argument for outsourcing your AM needs.

To integrate AM effectively, manufacturers need to consider many other factors manufacturers. The key three factors are:

1. Materials and Testing. Different AM components will have different mechanical and material properties and differing structural integrities.

Because of this, it’s important to understand the potential and limitations of different materials and conduct appropriate testing to qualify a desired material properly. This requires access to labs, experienced materials engineers, and quality assurance capabilities.

2. Leading Design Expertise. Designing for AM is different than traditional manufacturing design efforts.

Because you’re adding materials layer-by-layer rather than extracting them from large chunks of material, designers must be trained to understand the principles of DfAM so they can truly optimize the technology. The trouble is, because AM is still so new, these professionals are in short supply, which makes it costly to hire a qualified in-house team or train existing staff. AM providers, on the other hand, specialize in all facets of AM, and, as a result, often are more inclined to attract the industry’s top professionals.

A number of ancillary processes are used to produce AM components, including heat treatment.

3. End-to-end AM Processing. The AM technology itself only is one small component of a successful AM initiative.

Things like powder characterization, material science, post-processing, and quality assurance are equally important and require additional expertise and technologies. Consequently, even if you invest in the right AM printers, you’ll likely need to outsource at least some of these offerings, which negates the in-house investment benefits.

With the right AM partner, however, all these services are available under one roof—so you don’t have to go through the hassle of sourcing additional providers. Additionally, because these providers must take ownership of the process, it’s more likely to be executed in accordance with exacting quality standards.

Visiting potential AM experts allows you to see the labour intensity involved in the process. To maintain the highest standards of quality, all materials must be inspected both on arrival and throughout the printing process. Unlike traditional machining, AM requires manufacturers to continuously build the microstructure during the process to make sure each part delivers the desired results. Then a quality assurance review is conducted to make sure the printed part is, in fact, aligned with those standards.

Each step in this process is time-consuming and complex. For example, our own metallurgical lab monitors powders in our powder bed constantly—because powder doesn’t last forever. We conduct extensive tensile tests to ensure we’re building the material properly. We also rely on our full metallurgical lab and robust quality assurance processes to produce reliable, repeatable, and productive components.

Jason Ball is vice-president and general manager and Keyvan Hosseinkhani is technical director for Burloak Technologies, 3280 South Service Rd. W., Oakville, Ont. L6L 0B1, 905-592-0244, www.samuel.com/Burloak-Technologies.

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