Innovative Manufacturing for special Product Development

The purpose of the course is to present specifications techniques which are adequate to
small volume production of complex parts, made out from steel, aluminum, plastic, etc.
When developing a new product complex parts have to be made from final material (created
only from simulant material, in order to undertake functional tests, to validate the new product)
Only after that the classical tooling is produced for example molds for injection molded plastic
parts or classical dies for high pressure die casting.

Innovative manufacturing for SLM (Selective Laser Melting)

SLM is an additive manufacturing process which allows us to produce a complex metal
part, using steel powder (stainless steel, tool steel, AL powder or cobalt melt powder for medical
applications)
Realizer 250 is one type of SLM machine. The working principle is similar to other
additive manufacturing machines, is adding layer after layer and the metal powder is melted and
the density of energy is properly controlled in each voxel, according to the properties of each
type of metal powder.
The main parameters of SLM process are:
- The Laser power (50-200W);
- The scanning speed which actually is controlled by 2 parameters: - Point distance (PD) is very
small (a few );
- Exposure time (ET) is very
short (30 s);
- Hatching distance;
- Layer thickness, etc.
Disadvantages of SLM process:
- As compared with SLS is the fact that the support are strongly welded inside the cavity of
the part, witch in the SLM the support need to keep the part not to be deformed at the
very high temperature.
- Is lower productivity (it takes up to70 hours to produce a steel part with the outer of size
200x200x180 mm.
Advantages of SLM process:
- Is that we get a fully dense metal part with good mechanical properties comparable to the
properties of the parts made from laminated steel using CNC Machining operations.

There a limitations of the SLM processes due to a limited range of materials available for
SLM (30-60 m of the grains size).
There another type of innovative process to produce a complex steel part like EBM
(Electron Beam melting) using the machines produced by ARCAM (company).
The EBM machines are more sophisticated and faster as compared to the SLM machines
because the electron beam has a higher energy as compared to the laser beam.
Disadvantage of EBM is the fact that the part is made under the vacuum (VID).
The ARCAM machines are used more for end user production for medical application.

SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) for the metal parts

There are two different SLS processes: - Sinter Station Machine 2000 from 3D Systems
(company);
- EOS Machine from EOS GMBH (company);
Using the SS Machine, the metal powder are covered with a thin layer of polymer binder
on to the SLS it is sintered only the binder. When we take off the part on the machine it is not
finished, it is in a green stage and it requires part processing into the oven.
During the part processing the binder is fully vaporized (450C) the core of the part is
fully sintered (720C) and finally the part could be infiltrated in order to decrease the
porosity of the part and improve its mechanical properties.
The infiltration is based on to the capillarity effect and takes place at about 970C for
infiltration with bronze.
The disadvantage of this metal parts is this necessity of post processing when spatial
deformations (shrinkage).
The SLS metal parts made on to the EOS machines are more accurate because they do
not required any post processing.
There a separated machines for different types of materials:
- EOS -M - Metal;
-P Plastic;
-S - Ceramic powder.
The process is Called DMLS (direct Metal Laser Sintering) because in this case the metal
grains are sintered directly, not any binder or polymer is used.
Concepts Lasers GMBH is a company producing different types of SLM
Machines and the main differences as compared to Realizer 250 is the fact that the laser
beam could be used also as a tool to remove material (drilling, cutting) not only for
adding and melting material as far the classics SLM process.

Comparison between SLS and the SINTEROM method

SLS process is adequate for lower production of complex metal parts.

The SINTEROM method is suitable for large volume production, where the cost
of the molds is justified.
At SINTEROM the metal powder is pressed into the mold (Huge pressure about
300 MPa) and after that the sintering powder in the oven is very much similar to the part
processing of the SLS parts.

Curs II

Innovative manufacturing Investment Casting

It is used in small volume production of complex metal parts made by casting of
Al, bronze, alloys, cast iron, etc.
It is used also in Rapid product development, when aluminum parts are needed for
functional test of the new product, before tooling investments in molding is made. For
large volume production such parts are made by die casting.
The main steps of investment casting (IC) are as follows:
a). Produce the Master Model by Rapid Prototyping (LOM, SLS);
b). Cast under vacuum the silicon rubber molds;
c). Cast under vacuum the wax patterns models (as many as metal we need);
d). Set up the wax tree (inciorchinarea);
e). Cast under vacuum the ceramic shape within the flask (oala de formare),
around the wax tree.
f). Move the flask into the oven to dry the ceramic shape and to melt out the wax
tree.
g). Weight the necessary quantity of metal and putted into the crucible.
h). Program the induction oven for a suitable temperature according to the type of
metal (e.g. 640 for Al).
i). Heated the ceramic shape at (e.g. 320C for Al), otherwise cracks might appear
in the ceramic shape or contraction in the cast part.
j). Program the investment casting machine (Inductherm GMBH company), in
order to do the following operations:
1. Start the vacuum pump;
2. Cast the metal under vacuum (from the under knee);
3. Apply a small pressure (e.g. 2 Bar), from the top;
4. Cold down the vacuum chamber to solidify the metal tree release the vacuum
and the over pressure;
5. Brake the ceramic shape in order to extract the metal tree (using the water
pressure);
6. Cut the individual metal parts;
7. Finish the surface of the complex parts by sand blasting (sablare);

Remarks:

Investment Casting is competitive only in small volume production because for

each metal part, we loss booth, the wax model and the ceramic shape.
The accuracy of the investment casting process is quite good comparably to the
high pressure casting (die casting), even the microgeometry is transferred accurately from
the RP Master model, to the wax model and to the final method part, because all the
intermediary process are done under vacuum.

Small volume production of the plastics parts

Silicon rubber molding is a suitable technology to produce a few complex plastic
parts (from 20 to 50 buc.).
Using the machine MCP-001, PLC, the silicon molds are produced under vacuum
and after that the plastics parts are cast with in the silicon rubber molds (SRM).
If the shape of the part is not very complex and if we could find a splitting line,
than both molds are produced at once.
If the part is very complex then one half of the mold is produced first and the
second one afterwards.
Vacuum casting (VC) is efficient only for small volume production (SVP).
Injection molding is the suitable technology for large volume production (LVP).
The main steps of vacuum casting technology are as follow:
1. Produce the master model by RP;
2. Set up the splitting line;
3. Mark with black the outer perimeter of the splitting line;
4. Suspend the master model within a box made by wood (using a piece of
wood for gating.
5. Add some vents (coppered roods 2 mm);
6. Mix the two components of the silicon and move it in the vacuum
chamber for first gassing.
7. Poor the silicon in the box around the master model.
8. Second degasification (in the vacuum chamber).
9. Solidify the molds by thermal polymerization (in the oven).
10. Cut the splitting line and remove the master model (know the silicon
molds are ready).
On to the roe machine the SRM are used in the following manner:
- Prepare the molds and cover the surfaces with released agent.
- Set up the gazing on to the molds.
- Measure the necessary quantities of material (e.g. SG 95 resign (A and B).
- Programed the VC machine to do automatically the following operations:
1. Start the vacuum pump;
2. Mix the two components;
3. Poor the mixture into the SRM cavity;

4. Release the vacuum gradually.

- Solidify the part by thermal polymerization;
- Open the molds, remove and finish the part (cutting the gates and the vents).