Briggs airbox Stratasys
Fully functional 3D printed air intake tested on the Mono R supercar to improve final on-road performance.
Briggs Automotive Company (BAC) has harnessed Stratasys’ fused deposition modelling (FDM) technology to produce a functional prototype of an air intake system for the Mono R supercar.
Implementing 3D printing allowed BAC to reduce a two-week turnaround to just a few hours, enabling the company to install the airbox and move faster to carry out on-road tests to validate the design.
BAC’s Mono R can reach top speeds of 170mph, generate power of over 340 brake horsepower (bhp), and reach a power-to-weight ratio of 612bhp-per-tonne. The car’s airbox is an essential cog allowing the car to register such speed and power by bringing more oxygen into the combustion chamber. In doing so, it is typically exposed to temperatures of more than 100°C, and so the end-use part needs to be made entirely in carbon fibre.
Through Tri Tech 3D, a Stratasys reseller, BAC has installed an F900 Production system and was able to print a prototype of the airbox with the company’s Nylon 12CF carbon fibre-reinforced thermoplastic material, which can endure temperatures of up to 140°C. It allowed the company to conduct performance tests within a matter of days, knowing they had the flexibility to iterate again before the week was out. With traditional means of prototyping, any alterations to the design would have meant another two week wait.
“Access to quick, efficient, industrial-grade additive manufacturing was a game-changer for this development process,” commented Ian Briggs, BAC Design Director. “Within hours, we were able to produce an accurate 3D printed prototype of the airbox and install it on the car for testing. This enabled us to reduce our design-to-manufacturing time significantly. The prototype was as close, performance-wise, as if we had produced the prototype in carbon-fibre reinforced plastic made from a mould. It also withstood the tests on the track with ease.
“This is just the beginning for BAC in discovering what additive manufacturing can offer us as a design team, and how we can continue to push the boundaries of our industry.”
