| Through the acquisition of two heavyweight metal 3D printing companies, Concept Laser and Arcam, GE has become a super giant in 3D metal printing, but as an ambitious enterprise, they are not satisfied with this The company's 3D printing subsidiary, GE Additive, has developed a metal 3D printer prototype using binder jetting, which gives GE the three most current technologies in current metal 3D printing - The other two are Concept Laser and Arcam.  It is understood that GE's adhesive injection 3D printer forming the size of 300 mm x 300 mm x 350 mm, the printing speed of 40 cubic inches (655 cm 3) / hour.This speed is already on the market for the same type of equipment 2 times, but Mohammad, vice president and general manager of GE Additive, believes that it can actually be much larger, reaching an incredible 600-700 cubic centimeters per hour. Large - in fact, they are developing another sister model with a size 1-2 times higher. Binder injection 3D printing technology produces metal parts by a combination of material ejection and sintering processes that are faster and less expensive than other technologies, have higher finished product densities, and are easier to manufacture on a large scale, which It is the reason why it can get GE. However, the technology has its drawbacks, the most important thing is the current molding size is small, so GE this new device in the molding size of the breakthrough is worth the wait. It is worth mentioning that this prototype was developed from October 6, 2017, but completed by the end of November, less than 60 days before and after, showing how terrifying GE's research and development capabilities are. Ehteshami said GE is using the new machine in two ways: one is to manufacture the metal parts for itself because they require a lot of metal castings each year; and the other is to sell for the same high demand for metal castings (Such as aerospace and automotive) .In the past, these castings are produced using the traditional casting process.But this method is a long cycle, and the cost is very high (mainly to make molds), in many cases can not meet the rapid iteration of the product Demand. In contrast adhesive injection 3D printing technology will not have these problems, because it can directly produce metal parts, but also very fast, especially for both aluminum and iron materials. GE's adhesive-jet 3D printers are faster and cheaper than powder bed melting (including selective laser melting and electron beam melting) 3D printers, and use a special adhesive that, when printed on a metal part, passes through a heat-treatment process In response, the GE team is working to optimize, enhance heat treatment intensity, reduce distortion, and hope that the technology can be integrated with other manufacturing technologies. GE plans to launch the adhesive-jet 3D printer by mid-2018 with a customer base that includes internal demand departments at GE and external manufacturing customers, and GE's internal demand department hopes to receive the first deliverables by June 2018 . It is reported that GE's new adhesive injection 3D printer is being developed at its Cincinnati Additive Technology Center (ATC). So far, the center has more than 100 3D printers for the manufacture of aluminum, titanium, stainless steel, Cobalt alloy, nickel alloy, Inconel and other materials of metal parts. Source: South Polar Bear 3D Print |
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