Seurat Technologies
It was 18 months ago when Seurat Technologies began to detail to Siemens Energy the capabilities of its proprietary Area Printing powder bed additive manufacturing process.
As it did, the company shared how development continued on the parameters of its process, and its ability to print stainless steels, Inconels and tool steels. By May of this year, Seurat was ready to announce that it will manufacture 59 tons of parts for Siemens Energy turbines, with each side pushing the other into new territory. When they commenced discussions last year, Seurat hadn’t yet qualified Inconel 625 and Siemens had never considered additive manufacturing (AM) for these turbine parts.
Together, though, they will be ramping up the additive production of sealing segments for Siemens Energy turbines, starting at an annual rate of two tons and eventually climbing to an annual rate of 15 tons by the final year of this initial contract.
“This is a six-year agreement,” Seurat CEO James DeMuth says, “but that doesn’t mean this isn’t something that as we demonstrate capabilities that can be renewed and renewed and renewed. Really, this is all speaking to long-term production agreements to make parts. This was not a part that they had ever previously conceived to do via additive manufacturing. It was not a fit until we came along.”
Seurat caught the attention of Siemens Energy with its Area Printing technology, which it is intending to use to manufacture parts in mass volumes via a parts service offering. Area Printing is a powder bed 3D printing process which has been packaged into machines that currently print at 3kg/ hr across a 450 x 450 x 450 mm, with Seurat working to grow these capabilities to 1,700kg/hr and 9.6 x 9.6 x 9.6m by 2030. Siemens Energy has been so impressed by this roadmap, that it has also decided to become a strategic investor in Seurat. And as the conversation developed over the last year and a half, the pair worked together to assess potential applications, with most of Siemens Energy’s current roster of 3D printed parts considered too
low volume to make production with Area Printing economically viable. Concurrently, Seurat was working to develop and qualify materials. Qualification of 316L stainless steel was completed early, with Seurat next working through the qualification of Inconel 718. Deeming this to be more challenging than the qualification of Inconel 625 – a material suitable for the production of turbine sealing segments – Siemens Energy had identified their first application.
“We identify this as a great opportunity for us to expand their thinking and expand their mindset based on new capabilities,” DeMuth says. “They’re driving us to a new material. There’s qualification work we have to do, but as soon as we can get that buttoned up, they want parts as fast as they can get them because they have a need right now.”
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What Siemens Energy needs is to install 250 of these parts per turbine. The segment component is a ring that thermally expands as the turbine spins before sealing, and has been a part manufactured by Siemens Energy for decades. Shifting a portion of the part’s production to Seurat, the metal AM company will see the capacity of one machine taken up for the next six years.
Though Siemens is beginning to leverage an AM process for the production of this part, the design of the component will remain largely the same with only small tweaks made to achieve efficiency gains.
“We often talk about how we can make a part and not do any design changes on it,” DeMuth says. “Well, Siemens can’t help themselves. They've already thrown in a couple of tweaks here and there to leverage additive because they can. Cost is justified and then we're bringing on additive features and capabilities to improve efficiency, improve performance, improve assembly.”
As production commences, Seurat is confident that the additive manufacture of these parts is just the start. They are currently ‘deep diving’ into the Siemens part catalogue to assess the suitability of components for the current Seurat machines, as well as future generations.
“We found this part,” DeMuth finishes, “but that doesn’t mean it’s the best part. Not by a longshot.”
