Formalloy's LMD technology is said to be capable of printing with one of the most comprehensive lists of metal alloys on the market.
The rapid rate of additive manufacturing (AM) hardware innovation over the last few years has ushered in new eras of speed, performance and (so-called) world-firsts. In fact, we’ve been so maxed out on hardware innovation that TCT columnist Todd Grimm recently spoke about celebrating the steady march away from full blown hardware launches towards refinements and features as a sign of the industry’s progress. But hardware is only one piece of the AM puzzle and players are gradually turning their attention to other parts of the value chain through collaboration and development, namely in materials.
One of those companies is Formalloy, a California-based metal 3D printing outfit, which earlier this year took home the Exhibitor Innovation Award at RAPID + TCT for its Alloy Development Feeder (ADF), a new tool designed for exactly that, developing metal alloys.
The company introduced the ADF to enable high throughput bulk alloy synthesis for development of new materials and alloys specifically for AM. During a talk at the Detroit event, Melanie Lang, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Formalloy and one of this year's TCT Women in 3D Printing Innovator Award finalists, spoke about the demand from researchers, materials companies and end users, for new materials with greater mechanical properties compared to those already deployed in established manufacturing processes. Acknowledging mankind's long history with metals, Lang talked about how those same materials that have been around for thousands of years may not offer the most efficient solution for advanced manufacturing technologies and as a result, end users in high-value areas such as aerospace and automotive are investing in new materials which boast properties superior to that of traditional materials developed for traditional manufacturing techniques. While AM hardware processes pretty well defined, materials, Lang believes, is an area that has seen the least amount of innovation in the additive ecosystem.
"Now is the time that we really need the new materials," Lang told TCT. "There are all of these great technologies and now we're at a point where we're tweaking our systems and processes to process these materials that are decades or centuries old. So why not develop a new set of materials? This [feeder] really enables that process because material development is so challenging. So, we're trying to give this equipment to those developers to help us so that we can make better quality parts with superior features."
Formalloy, Co-Founder Melanie Lang accepts 2019 RAPID + TCT Innovation Award. (Image: RAPID + TCT/Twitter)
The feeder encompasses 16 miniature vials that can hold up to 15-20 millilitres of powder. This scale means engineers don't have to generate a huge bulk of material to fill up a standard powder feeder and can quickly deposit small amounts onto a single build plate. It also allows precise deposition of gradient materials while each layer is pre-alloyed to ensure composition accuracy. In one case, Lang showed an example of a metal piece, no larger than a US quarter coin which featured multiple alloys printed onto a single part.
"The alloy combination basically allows you to optimise your material for a certain property," Lang explained. "You could be optimising it for AM so that way it deposits better or builds better in a powder bed system. You could also deposit it to have some kind of special heat dissipation properties so it just allows you the opportunity to combine many different alloys very quickly to get your desired properties."
Formalloy's technology is said to be capable of printing with one of the most comprehensive lists of metal alloys on the market. Its laser metal deposition (LMD) systems are equipped with blue light laser technology to create near-net shape parts with diameters spanning 1mm to 1 metre at a deposition rate up to 15lbs/hr and has already been adopted by the likes of NASA in a series of R&D projects to investigate the scalability on AM for large, high-value components. The LMD process can also be applied to existing parts for repair damaged or worn components.
The innovation however, hasn't stopped there. In addition to the ADF, the company also demonstrated robotic integration by offering its standard Formalloy AX Metal Deposition Head as a standalone solution that can be integrated with robot or production cell to further its scalability. The head is said to have proven reliability for up to 8kW of laser power and built-in quick-release features to allow maintenance and changeovers in less than three minutes.
Formalloy LMD system.
"With our DED or LMD Systems, we always talk about how it's a scalable process because you're blowing the powder where you need it, you can do very large-scale build volumes," Lang commented. "It's also very fast for high throughput and what we're showing here is that we've integrated our same equipment from our turnkey system with a robot, to show that it doesn't have to be in a turnkey system, you can take the same technology that we have in our system, and you can bring it to your factory floor and integrate it into a robotic cell and use the same process parameters that you've used for machine."
The beauty of this, particularly for users who may be new to additive or customers requiring large parts in Formalloy's target markets of aerospace, automotive and energy, is it can be deployed into current production environments without being restricted by build volumes in a standard machine solution. For this California company which was founded on a goal to work on the next generation of how we build high-value components, these developments are significant milestones in delivering on that ambition.
Lang concluded: "This is really the opportunity we've been talking about in additive for a while. It's been used significantly in prototyping and low production and now it's time to start thinking about the future and what technologies can transition to those large build volumes and throughput, and that's what we're showing."
