Alcoa is a global leader in light metal technology, engineering and manufacturing, pioneering multiple material solutions to advance the world, providing value-added products made of titanium, nickel and aluminum, and producing world-class bauxite, oxidation Aluminum and primary aluminum products.
Just as oil companies like Shell, Mobil, BP, and Chevron have upstream oil and gas exploration and production operations, and downstream chemical and lubricants businesses are similar. Alcoa is now spinning off its downstream business, Arconic, whose main business will include metal powder production, 3D printing, hot isostatic pressing, forging, casting, machining, and quality inspection.
In terms of powder bed selective laser sintering technology, Alcoa has made continuous attempts. In Pittsburgh, Alcoa also has EBAM electron beam melting and welding technology to produce large-sized forged metal parts. As early as 2014, Alcoa announced that it would adopt 3D printing technology to manufacture jet engine parts, because Alcoa found blades such as jet engines and used traditional methods to produce from design to finished product for about one year, and used 3D printing Technology, time can be reduced to just 25 weeks. In addition to reducing the time by more than half, the cost of new product development may be reduced by 25% compared to traditional processes. And the 3D modeling process allows the design of complex components to be turned into reality, which shortens the long development process.
In fact, the nature of raw materials directly affects the quality of metal 3D printed products. Alcoa has invested a lot of manpower and material resources in this regard. Alcoa's engineers have been very clear about which types of metal powder are more suitable for different metal printing equipment. In actual processing, how to achieve the best setting of processing parameters to process the desired product, This involves the control of the geometry of the product and the control during the melting of the material. To achieve such a fine level of manipulation, a large number of experimental verifications and strict operating disciplines need to be established.
Through self-development and mergers and acquisitions, Alcoa has rapidly developed engineering capabilities throughout the entire process chain of additive manufacturing. They not only have an understanding of additive manufacturing based on a large number of operating practices, but also include post-treatment processes such as hot isostatic pressing. Made a lot of investment. Alcoa's own capabilities can meet the control of each link in the additive manufacturing process, and they can even develop specific metal powders according to specific processing needs, and then manufacture them through the additive manufacturing process, and then Perform post-processing and quality inspection. Airbus is one of Alcoa's current customers. Alcoa provides them with a package of services from materials to finished products. Alcoa has invested more than $ 20 million in Whitehall, Michigan, to increase the capability of hot isostatic pressing in the aftertreatment of 3D printed metal parts.
Separately splitting the downstream service business in the name of Arconic, undoubtedly Alcoa attaches great importance to the market prospects of the industry around additive manufacturing. Alcoa believes that compared to traditional manufacturing, additive manufacturing can produce complex geometric structures, which makes many traditional manufacturing methods impossible, and also highlights the advantages of additive manufacturing. However, complexity is not the most important thing. For users, they want lighter, stronger, more fatigue-resistant, and less vulnerable parts. And metal 3D printing uses rapid crystallization of metal powder to make products, which makes how to control the crystallization level becomes more important.
An example is Alcoa's proprietary "Ampliforge" process, which combines forging and additive manufacturing. In this process, the rough parts are first made by additive manufacturing, and then post-processed by forging. Of course, the preform only needs to be forged once in this process, instead of 11 or 12 times in a typical forging process. Through this processing method, the part actually became a forging.
Not only because Alcoa has its own core technology, but Alcoa's spin-off of Arconic is another reason to meet market demand in various aspects, not only the rapid growth of demand for additive manufacturing in the aerospace industry, including the automotive industry The demand in the field of sporting goods is also becoming increasingly prominent. Although the current focus on metal 3D printing is in the aerospace and medical fields, 3D Science Valley understands that Alcoa also attaches great importance to other fields. Car parts optimization can sometimes be as short as 8 weeks. Alcoa does not believe that aerospace is the most mysterious industry in the application of additive manufacturing technology. The most mysterious industry is the consumer sports industry.
In summary, Alcoa's approach can be described as a comprehensive net casting, focusing on cultivation. It is true that the current stage of 3D printing is quite similar to the feeling of the development of the western United States. Each company has different views on the potential and prospects of this technology, but the consensus is that you must understand the entire process chain. Only by averaging the entire process chain can you get a learning curve ahead of others at every point, and being ahead means being competitive