In June 2020, VELO3D, an unsupported metal 3D printing company, received a total of 150 million US dollars (about 1 billion yuan) in financing. The equipment was sold to several aerospace technology companies, such as SpaceX, Honeywell…
VELO3D is a developer of Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) additive manufacturing system and print preparation software, inventing SupportFree Geometries unsupported metal 3D printing technology. Founded in 2014, it received a Series A financing of US$22.1 million in 2015; it first disclosed its sapphire DMLS system at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in 2018. The key to the sapphire system is VELO3D's intelligent fusion technology, which can simulate and predict part deformation and eliminate support structures. The intelligent fusion process adjusts the design of the parts to balance the deformation, and cooperates with the feed-forward closed-loop molten pool control and in-situ measurement data to achieve the parts that have almost no support structure.
Metal additive manufacturing or 3D printing is mainly based on the welding process of rapid solidification of the molten pool. During solidification and cooling, parts will generate thermal stress and residual stress. The support has two functions: one is to act as a fixing member to fix the parts to prevent movement due to thermal deformation; the other is to conduct heat. Temporary support structures are necessary for direct energy deposition (DED) and traditional powder bed fusion (PBF) technologies, and usually require processing operations to be removed after printing. Post-processing increases costs and prolongs the cycle. More importantly, it limits the design freedom of metal 3D printing.
For decades, metal 3D printing companies have relied on supporting structures to fix parts on construction boards and perform thermal management. In general, we have begun to rely on these supports to assist in printing low-angle structures less than 45°. However, these low-angle geometries are also likely to produce support in internal channels that are not accessible by the assembly during part integration. By using supports to fix the parts on the construction board, 3D printing is fixed to the prototype design to a certain extent.
VELO3D is different from existing powder bed welding solutions and has the unique ability to print low angles and drapes as low as 0° (horizontal), as well as large diameters and inner tubes up to 100mm without support. This not only saves the trouble of post-processing, but also overcomes the 45° rule-angles less than 45° require support. VELO3D allows designers to build freely, releasing a large number of designs that can be produced by 3D printing.
According to VELO3D, its core technology is the patented re-coater process, called non-contact squeegee. It does not use the traditional contact scraper powder spreading mechanism, but uses non-contact technology, which has many benefits. Very good at producing high aspect ratio, thin-walled parts, large parts, etc. In short, the blade is not in contact with the metal powder bed when spreading powder. After spreading the powder, a non-contact scraper process is performed on the powder to ensure that the powder is absolutely flat. Similarly, these are not in contact with the actual bed or components, achieving a high degree of freedom, and thus enabling unsupported metal 3D printing.
As of June 2020, VELO3D has authorized about 35 patents. They not only applied for patents in the United States and Europe, but also some of them applied for related patents early in China, which shows that they attach importance to patent protection.
Patent 1. "Superb 3D printing CN108698126A". Submitted on December 9, 2016 for release on October 23, 2018. The present disclosure provides various instruments and systems for 3D printing. The present disclosure provides three-dimensional (3D) printing methods, instruments, software, and systems for stepping and repetitive energy irradiation processes; controlling material characteristics and/or deformation of 3D objects; reducing deformation in printed 3D objects; and enabling materials The bed is flattened.
Patent 2. "Accurate 3D printing CN108883575A". Priority 2016-02-18 Application Date 2017-02-16 Released 2018-11-23. The present disclosure provides a three-dimensional (3D) printing method, instrument, and system that uses, inter alia, a controller that regulates the formation of at least one 3D object (eg, in real time during 3D printing); and a non-transitory computer-readable medium that facilitates it. For example, a controller that adjusts the deformation of at least a part of the 3D object. Control can be in-situ. The control may be real-time control during the 3D printing process. For example, the control may be during a phenomenon pulse. The present disclosure provides various methods, instruments, systems, and software for evaluating the basic length scale of the molten pool, as well as various tools to increase the accuracy of 3D printing.
Patent 3. "Unsupported 3D printing equipment, system and method CN108436082A". June 20, 2014 Priority filed on June 19, 2015 for publication on August 24, 2018. The present invention provides a three-dimensional (3D) object, a 3D printing process, and a method, device, and system for the manufacture of 3D objects. The method, apparatus and system of the present invention can reduce or eliminate the need for auxiliary supports. The present invention provides three-dimensional (3D) objects printed using the printing processes, methods, devices, and systems described herein.