Both for Advanced Users & Beginners. Always.

This issue is a good reminder that everybody does not advance at the same pace. We realized that it is easy to get carried away by the wave of advanced users; those who are sometimes looking for unlikely solutions to ever more complex problems. It is the adrenalin linked to the desire to demystify the unknown – and when it subsides, we remember that next to them there are new users. There are always new users; those people who are starting their adventure, exploring AM processes and who do not know what tune to dance to. In this issue of 3D ADEPT Mag, we give voice to these two user profiles. Through various segments, we go back to the basics of 3D printing, but we also tackle more complex and technical subjects. The funny thing is, I think they fit in well with summer. So, if you feel like talking about lightweighting, heat (as in heat treatment and heat exchangers), powders, metal casting in AM or typical summer applications, you certainly are in the right place. Welcome !

Exclusive features

Dossier: AM & Casting: How is AM disrupting metal casting?

If one only looks at the manufactured part, at first glance, it could be easy to say that casting technology has nothing to envy to metal 3D printing as both technologies can deliver parts with internal holes and similar surface roughness. Here is the thing, surface roughness and internal holes are not enough to tilt the balance in favour of one technology or another. Mechanical properties, productivity and costs are other items that could help determine if both technologies can be seen as “enemies” or “friends”. With key contributions from Altair Engineering & Voxeljet.

Post-processing | Heat Treatment for Additive Manufactured Parts: A Dirty Little Secret that is yet to be understood

It’s easy to understand why powder removal is given top priority. Everything surrounding this process is relatively “new”, whereas for heat treatment, operators easily see some similarities between the steps they need to take, to heat treat their 3D printed parts and the steps to follow when the part has been manufactured via a traditional route. That’s probably where the trap is. They only see “similarities”. With various contributions: Wabtec, Paulo, and CNC machine shop Wagner Machine.

Interview of the Month | Conflux Technology: Reinventing high-performance heat exchangers with Additive Manufacturing first, then applying this expertise to other areas. 

The reason why I knew I would watch Conflux is that its core business focuses on a pretty vertically integrated business enabled by additive manufacturing, and not just any applications, the one that most metal 3D printer manufacturers will create to demonstrate the capabilities of their technology.

Materials | Metal Powders for AM Applications in Aerospace

EPMA’s AM seminar of 2022 was held in May focusing on AM in Aerospace with more than 20 presentations together with many fruitful discussions. One of the main outcomes of these discussions is that there is a strong need for a wider range of materials in Aerospace with optimised properties for AM. Optimisation includes developing specific powder production processes, good powder characterization such as morphology and flowability properties, as well as the optimisation of the AM process itself.

Software: 4 software strategies that can be explored to enable Lightweighting with Additive Manufacturing

How many times have you seen the word “lightweighting” used next to “additive manufacturing”? When one looks beyond the buzz that this combination of words might create, we’ll come to realize that this manufacturing concept involves value equations for specific types of parts, which can lead to improvements on existing products, new business models and new markets. With contributions from Cognitive Design Systems and nTopology.

Materials | Metal Powders for AM Applications in Aerospace

EPMA’s AM seminar of 2022 was held in May focusing on AM in Aerospace with more than 20 presentations together with many fruitful discussions. One of the main outcomes of these discussions is that there is a strong need for a wider range of materials in Aerospace with optimised properties for AM. Optimisation includes developing specific powder production processes, good powder characterization such as morphology and flowability properties, as well as the optimisation of the AM process itself.

AM Shapers | Consumer Goods Industry: 3D printing is at the heart of their business

It’s easy to see glasses, shoes and bikes as top applications in the consumer goods industry, but there are more…And what’s even more interesting is that sometimes, the founders do not necessarily always have an engineering background. In this edition of “summer specials”, we shed light on three businesses that rely on 3D printing to thrive: Wyve, The Future of Jewelry (TFOJ) and Little You.

AM 101: Tips from three industry experts to Reduce Costs and Lead Time in 3D printing.

Sabrina Kerber, Juan Carlos Cruz Robles and Josep Maria Salvador Morón share a few tips they wish they’d known sooner in their 3D printing journey.