Oerlikon
Oerlikon-AM_Aerospace_Sentinel-Antenna
Weight reduction in parts is a major objective for the aerospace and automotive industries.
The additive manufacturing cluster set up by the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Oerlikon and Linde is to develop new aluminium-based alloys for the aerospace and automotive sectors.
With 50% of the €1.7m project being funded by The Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, the partners will carry out all of the work from a single location, a key feature of their collaboration. Their aim through this assignment is to develop high-strength, lightweight aluminium-based alloys which will allow industrial users to additively manufacture parts that meet the safety and weight-reduction needs of their trade.
Recognising that producing aluminium alloys with a high content of lightweight elements like aluminium requires a deep understanding of chemistry, thermo-and fluid dynamics, the partners will pool together their expertise. During the additive manufacture of aluminium alloys, melt pool temperatures can create an atmosphere which causes the evaporation losses of alloying elements with low boiling temperatures, such as magnesium. Cooling rates of more than 1 million °C per second can also create high stresses during solidification which can cause micro cracks in the solid material.
The partners will each harness their respective expertise in a bid to overcome these challenged. Oerlikon’s knowledge in powder and material science will drive the development of the novel material in the first instance and its Scoperta-RAD software’s data simulation and analysis tools will help to optimise its performance. TUM is set to harness the capabilities of its Institute of Aerodynamics and Fluid Mechanics (AER), which is able to understand in detail how the additive manufacturing process works thanks to numerical simulations, while Linde has expertise in gas atmosphere control and evaporation suppression which can be utilised to overcome impurities within the print chamber.
“Characterising and controlling the gas process during AM not only has the potential to prevent evaporation losses, but also to accelerate the entire printing process,” explained Thomas Ammann, Expert Additive Manufacturing at Linde. “Using a tailor-made gas chemistry for the new alloy would help to control the processes occurring in the melt pool and minimise the compositional changes of the alloys, as well as preventing cracking during printing.”
At AER, a process simulation tool developed to cover the whole melt pool dynamics, from solid to liquid and gas with phase change models, surface-tension effects and thermal transport. This, TUM believes, will provide a detailed insight into the ‘simultaneously occurring thermo-fluid dynamic phenomena’ and be crucial to understanding the process and final material characteristics.
All three additive manufacturing cluster members will be exhibiting at the upcoming Formnext event. Oerlikon can be found in Hall 12.1, Stand B01; Linde in Hall 12.0, Stand C141; and TUM in Hall 11.1, Stand C61.
Formnext takes place in Frankfurt on 19-22 November. Register for your showfloor ticket here and visit the TCT @ Formnext Conference website to register for your conference pass.
