Except for aerospace and medical, most industries are striving to find economically viable metal additive manufacturing industrialization opportunities. Taking into account issues such as the complexity of technology and processes, the need for quality control processes, and the learning curve associated with any new technology, the challenge of pushing additive manufacturing into industrialization is not something a company can face And fully resolved.
For surface production, GE Binder Jet Metal 3D Printing has initiated a partnership program to fully realize the transformative benefits brought by additive manufacturing through joint development and sharing of knowledge.
Innovation comes from the combination of upstream and downstream, capital accelerates technological development
In recent years, equipment for metal 3D printing through the binder jetting process has been favored by investors. From the perspective of the investment market, a large amount of investment funds have entered the binder jet 3D printing field due to the high speed, high volume and low cost factors. The rising stars Desktop Metal, Markforged, Digital Metal, etc. are all representative companies in this field. .
Binder jet metal 3D printing outstanding advantages
• High efficiency • Economical powder • No complicated support requirements
GE announced in 2017 that it had entered the field of binder jet metal 3D printing technology, and announced a prototype 3D printing device based on the binder jet process.
Binder-jet metal 3D printing technology can quickly manufacture metal parts in a short time, significantly shortening the manufacturing cycle, especially in the rapid manufacturing of stainless steel and aluminum parts, which can compete with the casting process. This technology has application potential in manufacturing industries that require rapid manufacturing of castings.
Cooperation to catalyze the industrialization process
For automated mass production, GE's goal by building a partnership is to compress the additive manufacturing industrialization process of more than 20 years to three years. According to 3D Science Valley, the cooperation process between GE and its partners will be divided into three stages:
The goal of Phase 1 is the development of parts. By equipping 1-2 sets of binder jet metal 3D printing equipment, GE dispatched design and engineering teams to promote part development with partners. By manufacturing prototypes, entering the initial low-speed printing for testing and verification, while monitoring OEE data to improve the establishment of the required platform, and finally adjusting the equipment, software, binders, processes and materials for further development of production requirements. .
The goal of Phase 2 is to test the production line. By equipping 4-8 adhesive jet metal 3D printing equipment, create a prototype production line project with replicable scalability, and optimize the scalability by monitoring the differences between the equipment Yield rate and production efficiency to achieve platform maturity. In the process of achieving the maturity of the production line, more parts will be developed at the same time, and automated concept testing will be completed.