Some companies have bolder missions than others. Whilst Elon Musk leverages metal Additive Manufacturing to transform space exploration, the founders of PrinterPrezz, Alan and Alexis Dang, Kishore Karkera and Shri Shetty, are aiming to do something equally bold with the same technology: bring safe, affordable, right-fit medical implants to the 97% of the world that can’t currently access them. Todd Grimm interviewed Alan Dang and Shri Shetty to discover more. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 8 No. 2, Summer 2022]
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In the men’s track cycling team pursuit qualifying at the 2020 Olympics, broadcast live to a global audience, a handlebar part produced by metal Additive Manufacturing failed with catastrophic consequences for the rider, Australia’s Alex Porter. Six months later, a forensic analysis of the incident was published as a 170-page report. The good news is that the company that made the AM part, along with the technology itself, were cleared of blame. So: what went wrong, and what lessons can be learned? Robin Weston digs into the details. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 8 No. 2, Summer 2022]
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Bringing Additive Manufacturing in house is a big step for any company, but when you are at the small end of the ‘SME’ spectrum, it can be an especially bold move. Robin Weston recently visited Atherton Bikes, based in rural west Wales, to see how this specialist bike producer is enjoying ramping up in-house production of its titanium and carbon fibre performance mountain bikes on a new, four-laser Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) machine from Renishaw. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 8 No. 1, Spring 2022]
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Designs not driven by requirements increase the risk of an incomplete solution. This relatively simple statement gets to the heart of how designers need to be approaching AM, particularly when balancing the ‘design freedoms’ offered by the technology with the reality of viable and profitable production. Through an exploration of the ubiquitous AM bottle opener, John Barnes, Jennifer Coyne and Chelsea Cummings, The Barnes Global Advisors, and Jon Meyer, APWorks, explore how, by focusing on requirements, a data-driven approach ensures fully functional designs that deliver on multiple requirements for the lowest cost. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 7 No. 1, Spring 2022]
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The history book of engineering is filled with concepts that failed to achieve success because they were ahead of their time. This was almost the case for the aerospike rocket engine, recognised in the 1950s as a strong concept and tested by NASA in the 1980s and 1990s, but found to demand too much of the manufacturing and materials technology available at the time. Metal AM magazine spoke with Pangea Aerospace and Aenium Engineering about reinventing the aerospike for the 21st century, and how Additive Manufacturing allowed them to ‘make the unmakeable’ – pushing their expertise in AM, materials science and Design for AM to its limits in the process. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 7 No. 1, Spring 2022]
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The Czinger 21C hypercar is a ‘tour de force’ of metal Additive Manufacturing. With over 350 AM components used in the vehicle’s structure, suspension, brake systems, drivetrain and beyond, this is the realisation of the bold vision of Kevin Czinger, CEO of Divergent 3D. Behind the headlines about the car’s record-breaking performance, however, is a far more important story: the development of the Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPS), a complete software/hardware solution designed to replace traditional vehicle manufacturing. Jeff Kerns reports for Metal AM magazine. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 7 No. 4, Winter 2021]
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Spare parts keep the world turning, and their complex supply chain is an industry in itself, specifically designed to get trains moving, ships sailing, and industry producing. But this is an expensive business, and one driven by calculated risk. Do you reduce your profits by stocking every expensive, highly engineered part that you might need, even though the chances are that most will never be used? Here, Joseph Kowen considers if digital part inventories, in conjunction with metal Additive Manufacturing, can transform how the spare parts industry operates. What are the opportunities, and how are early adopters already taking advantage of them? [First published in Metal AM Vol. 7 No. 4, Winter 2021]
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This summer, a new player arrived on the AM scene: the Digital Manufacturing Centre, or DMC. Based on the edge of Silverstone, the UK’s most famous race circuit, home to numerous leading F1 teams, there could be no better place to launch a business aimed at offering AM support to the elite in performance motorsport. Jim Hadfield speaks with the DMC’s CEO, Kieron Salter, to explore how metal Additive Manufacturing is enabling innovation in the booming hypercar industry, and how a truly connected digital manufacturing operation can bring the DMC a competitive advantage in this field and more. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 7 No. 2, Summer 2021]
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Heat exchangers have become – excuse the pun – a hot topic in metal Additive Manufacturing. This is an application that can, in one go, leverage advances in equation-driven CAD design software and the capabilities of AM to produce geometries that would be impossible by any other manufacturing process. Olaf Diegel, Wohlers Associates, reports on a project exploring workflows for AM heat exchanger design using design tools from nTopology. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 7 No. 2, Summer 2021]
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In highlighting the vulnerabilities of global supply chains, events such as COVID-19 have inspired renewed interest in alternative forms of organising production. Distributed manufacturing is now seeing early use in fields such as oil and gas and for on-demand spare parts manufacturing. For the first time, large-scale on-demand manufacturing was seen in the supply of emergency PPE at the height of the pandemic. Dr Jennifer Johns discusses how AM can help to address the challenges this new business model presents, and introduces the University of Bristol’s £1 million Brokering Additive Manufacturing project, which seeks to produce a revolutionary new brokering method for highly distributed and diverse manufacturing systems. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 7 No. 2, Summer 2021]
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In October 2020, New York City-based space technology company Launcher started testing its full-sized E-2 liquid rocket engine, designed to deliver the highest performance at the lowest cost for smaller space launch vehicles. That the E-2 features a one metre tall single-piece copper alloy Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) combustion chamber is remarkable. What is even more impressive is the fact that Launcher, a company with less than twenty employees, achieved this in a short time frame and to a relatively modest budget. Metal AM magazine’s Nick Williams reports on the project and Launcher’s close collaboration with specialist PBF-LB machine builder AMCM GmbH. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 6 No. 4, Winter 2020]
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The Additive Manufacturing industry in South Africa has come a long way since the installation of the country’s first AM machine in 1991, with a number of research and commercial initiatives driving the development of world-class applications and knowledge. In this article, Terry Wohlers and Olaf Diegel, Wohlers Associates, present an overview of metal Additive Manufacturing activities in South Africa, from the technology’s life-changing use for medical implants to its development for rapid, large-scale part production and beyond. [First published in Metal AM Vol. 6 No. 4, Winter 2020]
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