Stratasys developing metal Additive Manufacturing platform for short-run applications
With its new system, Stratasys expects to offer its customers a new ability to short-run manufacture metal parts made with commonly used metal powders, starting with aluminium (Courtesy Stratasys Ltd)
Stratasys Ltd, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, and Rehovot, Israel, reports that it is developing a new metal Additive Manufacturing platform designed to offer a viable solution for short-run manufacturing. According to the company, the new system has been developed internally over the past several years, and incorporates Stratasys’s proprietary jetting technology.
The company has been developing and producing polymer-based Additive Manufacturing systems for roughly thirty years, including its popular FDM and PolyJet 3D printing platforms. This will be the first internally developed metal AM system on offer by the company and is reportedly aimed at addressing the needs of customers whose requirements include the production of pilot-series parts, small batch manufacturing during product ramp up and end-of-life, and customised, lightweight and complex parts.
With this new technology, Stratasys expects to offer its customers a new ability to short-run manufacture metal parts made with commonly used metal powders, starting with aluminium, at an economically competitive cost-per-part and throughput, with easy to implement post-processing and high part quality.
“We are extremely excited to announce our development of this new Additive Manufacturing platform, targeting short-run production applications for a variety of industries, including automotive, aerospace, defence, machining and metal foundries,” stated Ilan Levin, Chief Executive Officer of Stratasys. “We believe that this platform will meaningfully expand our addressable markets for the long-term and provide our customers with an effective means to realise the values of AM for Powder Metallurgy applications.”
The company stated that it will unveil further details about this new technology at the RAPID + TCT 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing Conference, Booth#1104, taking place Fort Worth, Texas, USA, April 23-26, 2018.
