Mott/Renishaw
3D printed filtration component
Mott Corporation, a manufacturer of high-precision filtration and flow control solutions, has shared how its adoption of metal additive manufacturing has improved efficiencies in the development of its customised products.
The US-based company creates complex filtration and flow control components with tailored porosities to help reduce pressure drop and energy consumption for customers in the healthcare, semiconductor, food & beverage, energy, and defence sectors. But such components can be challenging to produce via traditional manufacturing techniques, particularly as applications call for the rapid development of more complex parts with new geometries.
It was this demand that led to Mott’s purchase of a RenAM 400 laser powder bed fusion 3D printer from Renishaw in an effort to deliver new prototypes and design flexibility, and forgo the time-consuming process of producing multiple press and die tooling sets. The installation of the RenAM 400 has allowed the company to manufacture a range of porous media comparable to its conventional offerings, with some printed versions exhibiting performance improvements, such as lower pressure drop.
Following that early success, Mott is now working with a RenAM 500S Flex system, an open architecture machine which can be configured with one or four high power 500 W lasers and allows the quick swapping of materials to make it easier for users to experiment with different metal alloys.
“The Flex has been the most popular stop on our facility tours,” Vincent Palumbo, Program Manager at Mott said. “It's great to see customers' reactions to the parts we have been able to create. It has also generated useful dialogue between us and our customers to come up with development projects, and think of other components we can design with them in the future.”
Palumbo says the machine’s open architecture has been key to enabling the development of its unique components. The company reports it has been able to reduce machine turnaround and setup times by 50% compared to the previous model, while the machine's improved gas flow and re-coating mechanisms have improved the standard deviation of performance metrics by approximately 30% in certain builds.
Earlier this month, Domin, a UK-based manufacturer of high-performance hydraulic valves announced it has taken delivery of a Renishaw RenAM 500Q Ultra system to support growing demand for its servo proportional hydraulic valves used across automotive, aerospace and manufacturing industries.
