Earlier this year, TCT went along to Stratasys’ headquarters in Minneapolis to get a first look at two technologies that the additive manufacturing (AM) giant hailed as a “step-change” for additive. The technologies, the Robotic Composite and Infinite-Build 3D Demonstrators, turned the concept of FDM on it’s head, quite literally in the case of the latter, to enable practically infinite print lengths and the rapid manufacture of composite parts.
One particular machine, the Robotic Composite 3D Demonstrator was developed in collaboration with Siemens PLM Software and integrates AM technology with industrial motion control hardware and design-to-print software. The traditional method of making composites is extremely labour intensive but this approach is set to transform the process with the ability to build complex, composite parts within hours. The system uses an 8-axis robotic arm to enable precise, directional material placement without the need for support structures to create lightweight, high value, composite parts, which are particularly valuable to the aerospace industry.
At the TCT Show 2016 Conference, Vynce Paradise, Head of Advanced Manufacturing at Siemens PLM Software, spoke about how these partnerships are key to enabling the industrialisation of 3D printing. He details how, for many manufacturers, 3D printing is still only a small part of the process, usually confined to a small area of the factory floor and reserved primarily for prototyping applications. There are also several challenges that manufacturers must first overcome to ensure that additive fits within their current processes such as repeatability, scalability, material behaviour and integration. In order to do that companies need to partner together to combine expertise and develop solutions that will further the adoption of AM on real factory floors.
Vynce comments: “When it comes to this kind of equipment, it’s so new, there are so many things we’re both working out, that we have to partner … because we want to get tied together to build a solution and develop it together.”
In this talk Vynce discusses the ways Siemens PLM is partnering with various machine manufacturers to make this happen. Download the podcast or watch the full presentation here.
