Hiperbaric highlights HIP’s increasing importance in Additive Manufacturing
Hiperbaric, Burgos, Spain, designs, manufactures and markets high-pressure industrial technology and equipment. With an increasing interest from the Additive Manufacturing sector, the company is seeing demand grow for its Hot Isostatic Press units, and reports it is expecting to produce between three and five HIP units per year from 2024 to 2027.
This level of sales would represent more than 6% of the company’s income, a figure that the company believes will equate to over €10 million in annual sales from 2027 onwards.
In 2021, Hiperbaric opened a HIP Innovation Center, the first such facility in southern Europe where users can test new material developments using HIP and work on the opportunities that this technology brings to Additive Manufacturing.
Hiperbaric not only makes HIP machines for use by additive manufacturers, it is also using Additive Manufacturing to produce parts for the HIP machines. “Because we are so involved in the world of HIP and Additive Manufacturing, we have become a user of 3D printing to make our HIP equipment,” explained Rubén García, HIP Project Manager at Hiperbaric. “In the HIP machine we are building now, we have been able to design an Additive Manufacturing heat exchanger that cools the contents of the load very quickly.”
“3D printing allows you to optimise parts in such a way that, with 60% of the weight, they give you the same function. In addition, it also reduces waste because you only use the precise material to manufacture the part,” García added.
Hiperbaric’s knowledge, developed over the past twenty years, has enabled the company to design and develop Hot Isostatic Pressing technology in the framework of different research projects. One of these is the €2.09 million SmartMat project for research into advanced material production, with another the XtremHIP for the design of high-performance HIP equipment. Both projects have been financed by the Institute for Business Competitiveness (ICE), of the Castilla y León Regional Government, and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) – A way of doing Europe.
One growing market for HIP technology is for medical implants, explains Hiperbaric. This sector benefits from the design freedom offered by AM, with the mechanical properties provided by HIP. This is the case of Optimus 3D, an AM engineering company which uses Hiperbaric’s HIP technology to eliminate internal defects and pores that could lead to the appearance and propagation of cracks that would eventually cause an implant to break.
