On June 13, 2019, the "2019 International Forum on Automotive 3D Printing Technology Application" held by ACR was held at Shanghai Xinqiao Greenland Platinum Hotel. Many big coffees from the automotive industry and 3D printing industry gave speeches at the forum.
In this forum, the marketing manager of ACEO China at WACKER made a report entitled "Innovative Application of ACEO Silicone 3D Printing in the Automotive Industry".
WACKER CHEMICAL is a supplier of silicone materials with a history of more than 70 years. It is also one of the companies that entered the development of silicones very early in the world. WACKER ACEO® 3D printing technology is the world's first industrial-grade technology for additive manufacturing of liquid silicone rubber components. With its unique "drop-on-demand" technology, ACEO® ensures full design freedom for printing highly functional parts while maintaining excellent properties such as high temperature resistance, radiation resistance and biocompatibility of silicone rubber . Silicone rubber components printed with ACEO® technology are widely used in many key industries such as automotive, aerospace, medical, equipment, and mechanical engineering.
At present, WACKER CHEMICAL has 23 production bases, 21 technology centers, 50 sales offices and 14 WACKER colleges in the world. In 2017, WACKER Chemicals achieved sales of 4.9 billion euros and employs 13,800 people. In 2016, WACKER CHEMICALS established its production base in Burghausen, which became the origin of the global silicone 3D printing.
ACEO® Silicone 3D Printing Overview
Silicone-Multifunctional high-tech material with high elasticity (sealing), high temperature resistance (high and low temperature), excellent reliability (medium-resistant), suitable for various applications
Additive manufacturing for the automotive industry includes the following:
Additive Manufacturing
Conceptual model
Verification design
Functional prototype
Tooling mold
spare parts
Typical Benefits
Rapid prototyping, lightweight
Save time to market
Reduce risk and facilitate easy management Improve assembly line efficiency
Production robot hand
Make small batches possible and reduce lead times Reduce inventory
ACEO® / WACKER Companion Product Lifecycle Management
Modern car designs use an average of 5kg of silicone per vehicle, even more so with electric vehicles.
Reduce spare parts inventory with 3D printing
Reduce high inventory costs
Guaranteed supply of spare parts:
25 years by train
Car for 10 years
Typical industrial application for 5 years
Modern supply chain: spare parts on demand
Silicone is universal to replace other synthetic rubbers
Prospects and challenges
Silicone 3D printing is an emerging technology, but it has begun to be gradually applied, and it will become more and more widely used in the industrial field in the future. With the advantages of 3D printing being insensitive to complex shapes and eliminating the need for mold opening, more and more innovative designs are emerging and production efficiency has been effectively improved. The world is not only exploring the potential of 3D printing in prototype printing, small batches, and parts printing, but is also increasingly using the advantages of true 3D structures to achieve innovative designs, such as anatomical models, the use of lattice structures, and robotics Grab your hands and wait. Therefore, there is still huge room for development in silicone 3D printing.
However, the development of a new technology is always accompanied by obstacles. Due to insufficient market awareness of 3D printing and unclear qualification process standards, some low-performance products have appeared on the market, which has damaged the reputation of silicones. This is especially true for users who do not know about silicones from traditional processes. Therefore, professional organizations, industry associations and other organizations should actively solve the problem of standard setting for silicone 3D printing. Manufacturers should work closely with customers to use silicone 3D printing technology to make production more flexible and be able to respond quickly to different needs.