One of our most anticipated Additive Talks sessions was “Additive manufacturing for heat exchangers: Path to mainstream adoption?”.
Around our virtual table, we put together Dr Toby Maconachie, Additive Manufacturing Leader at PWR and Ian Fordyce, Head of R&D at Conflux Technology.
While AM is part of Conflux business strategy from day one, PWR first specializes in the manufacturing of heat exchangers using conventional manufacturing approaches. The company integrated metal additive manufacturing into its operations in 2019
With that in mind, we were expecting the conversation to become the usual battle between additive manufacturing and conventional manufacturing approaches.
Throughout the conversation, Maconachie discusses with examples the reasons why he believes conventional manufacturing processes are still the ideal route for producing heat exchangers and the areas where he believes AM does a better job. While Fordyce agrees with most of these areas, he emphasizes why Conflux is holding on to its AM approach for manufacturing heat exchangers.
Together, the two experts discuss:
- The factors (technological, economic, or regulatory) that are driving customer interest in AM heat exchangers today?
- The reasons why a gyroid is not always the answer that enables to boost heat exchangers’ efficiency.
- The role of CFD in optimizing heat exchanger designs
- The materials that are proving most successful for high-performance AM heat exchangers, and the current limitations in the market
The main conversation took place until 34mn and is followed by a live Q&A session with the audience.
Watch below for more insights.
