Audi to showcase Scaled 3D Printed Auto Union Racecar at Formnext

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Formnext powered by tct kicks off tomorrow and one of its unmissable attractions is the Audi Tooling feature (Stand: C10). The luxury German car manufacturer is here to showcase how it manufactured cars in the past, how it does so now and how, using additive technologies and Industry 4.0 principles, it will do so in future.

Amongst the many magnificent looking cars on display will be the Auto Union Typ C racecar modelled at a 1:2 scale. The working proof of concept race car was designed to demonstrate how the company can put metal 3D printing to good use and additively manufacture a replica of an award-winning 1936 car. 

Audi Toolmaking used selective-sintering laser melted layers of metallic powder with a grain size of 15 to 40 thousandths of a millimetre to make the Silver Arrow model. Audi Toolmaking is currently using 3D printing to produce components out of aluminium and steel. At present, this process can be used to produce shapes and objects with a length of 240 millimeters and a height of up to 200 millimeters. These printed components achieved a higher density than components made by die casting or hot forming.

“The paradigms of the smart factory are changing our work in the Toolmaking division. In the future, we will connect equipment, machinery and people even more closely with each other, and will make use of new methods to develop even more flexible and precise tools,” stated Michael Breme, Head of Toolmaking at AUDI AG, who appears as a keynote at the formnext conference.