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Radio Flyer cuts ebike prototype time radically with Fuse X1 large-format SLS 3D printer

Radio Flyer cut prototype lead times for its Flyer Loop cargo ebike frame from two months to two days using Formlabs' new Fuse X1 SLS large-format 3D printer. "We can now print an entire Flyer Loop cargo ebike overnight and be gluing it together the next day," said Agostino LoBello, product development engineer at Radio Flyer. "I can iterate three times as often with nine times less labor." The Fuse X1 delivers production-quality parts with 50% lower costs and triple the throughput of comparable industrial systems, featuring automated powder handling and a compact, easy-to-install design. [Credit: Image courtesy of Formlabs]
View the video.

Compact industrial sand 3D printer

ExOne has launched the S-Print Pro, a compact industrial sand 3D printer that brings production-grade binder jetting to smaller foundries, pattern shops, and print service providers. Aimed at businesses competing on cost and flexibility, it handles low-volume casting, spare parts, and custom components. The system processes furan binder with silica sand, CeraBeads, or silicon carbide.
Learn more about this capable machine.

Fast-cure composite for aero and defense manufacturing

Toray Composite Materials America has launched 3960-FC, a fast-cure variant of its high-performance 3960 prepreg system for mission-critical aerospace and defense applications. This material reduces cure time by up to 45% while maintaining proven mechanical performance, stiffness, and exceptional toughness. It is highly compatible with automated manufacturing technologies like AFP and ATL, as well as traditional processing methods.
Learn more.

Metal finishing: With rising carbide prices, when cermet makes sense

As critical raw material access tightens, manufacturers are rethinking cutting tool usage. While essential, carbide is often unnecessary for finishing processes. Cermet -- a ceramic-metal composite -- offers an excellent alternative, delivering exceptional fracture and wear resistance for these specific machining stages.
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Full-color 3D-printing Design Guide from Xometry

With Xometry's PolyJet 3D-printing service, you can order full-color 3D prints easily. Their no-cost design guide will help you learn about different aspects of 3D printing colorful parts, how to create and add color to your models, and best practices to keep in mind when printing in full color. Learn how to take full advantage of the 600,000 unique colors available in this flexible additive process.
Get the Xometry guide.

Next-gen SLA materials rival traditional thermoplastics

Formlabs has announced two new SLA materials that bring 3D printing significantly closer to being a manufacturing method for end-use part production. Tough 1000 Resin and a significantly improved Tough 2000 Resin join Tough 1500 Resin, forming the new Tough Resin family. These resilient engineering materials stand up to harsh environments, impact, and repeated wear, all while delivering a dark, matte surface finish with crisp details when printed on Form 4 Series 3D printers.
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Surface inspection: From Army depot to factory floor

Born from U.S. Army requirements for rotorcraft inspection, the GelSight Modulus 3D surface measurement system has surpassed 100 units sold to commercial and Department of Defense customers. The handheld, micron-scale tool with interchangeable probe tips delivers fast, high-res measurements in places traditional tools can't reach.
Read the full article.

What is Cold Metal Fusion?

Cold Metal Fusion is an open industry standard for sinter-based metal additive manufacturing. It combines polymer SLS design freedom with reliable debinding and sintering workflows, enabling complex geometries, lightweighting, lattice structures, conformal cooling channels, and high-precision metal parts with predictable shrink behavior. Now available from TriMech Group, this process offers a faster, cost-effective way to produce strong, high-performance metal parts.
Learn more from TriMech Group.

Metal 3D printing: EOS adds four new materials

Industrial 3D-printing supplier EOS has added four new metal additive manufacturing materials to its portfolio: an iron-nickel alloy that boasts stability under fluctuating temps, a nickel alloy with high strength and extreme corrosion resistance, a low-alloyed steel prized for its high toughness and strength, and an industrial-grade stainless steel. Each has been optimized for EOS Laser Powder Bed Fusion systems.
Get all the details.

New materials and finishes from Quickparts

Quickparts has introduced DuraKor, ThermaKor, and vapor smoothing to expand its production-capable materials and finishing portfolio. The new plastics provide polypropylene-like toughness, chemical resistance, and high-temperature stability, while vapor smoothing improves sealing and surface quality. Together, these capabilities help engineers validate designs, refine performance, and transition efficiently from prototypes to scalable manufacturing.
Learn more.

What's the latest in SLA 3D printing?

Learn about the latest offerings in SLA printing from 3D Systems, including the introduction of SLA 825 Dual, the company's most advanced large-frame Stereolithography printer. Other new products include ArrayCast investment casting software that allows users to effortlessly create customized casting trees (complete with configurable runners, sprues, and end effectors), Accura SbF (the latest SLA casting resin), and Accura Xtreme Black (which delivers low shrinkage, large, functional SLA prototype parts with sharp detail).
Learn about all the new 3D Systems products.

meviy cuts CNC milling lead times to just 4 days

meviy, the on-demand custom parts manufacturing service developed by MISUMI Group, has upgraded its Expedite+ service with improved lead times for CNC Milled parts. Customers can now have their parts shipped in as few as four days through meviy's fastest delivery option. The enhanced service helps manufacturers and engineers stay on schedule when projects are behind or production is interrupted. Supported materials include steels and aluminums. Check out their instant quoting too.
Learn more.

Top Tech Tip: How do you 3D print STL files?

Learn the basics of 3D printing STL files -- the files that serve as the digital foundation for 3D printing -- and a whole lot more from the experts at Xometry. These files have advantages, of course, but did you know they have disadvantages too? Also learn about STL tools and programs, and how to reduce file size or even repair a file you are having trouble with.
Read the Xometry article.

When metals can't survive: Machined ceramics as an alternative

Technical Ceramics are so hard and wear resistant that they cannot be machined with conventional tools -- but they can outlast and outperform other materials in demanding or harsh applications. INSACO's proprietary diamond grinding process and specialized techniques developed over many decades allow the company to produce and document parts to exacting specifications consistently. Learn all about the alternatives you have when metals just can't take it.
Read the INSACO article.

Metal 3D printing: Right at your desktop

From prototyping to tooling or batch production of end-use parts, the Studio System 2 from Desktop Metal brings metal 3D printing to any office, studio, or lab setting. This powder- and laser-free system consists of an easy-to-adopt two-step process: print using pre-bound metal rod feedstock and then sinter. It requires minimal training and operator intervention. Combined with next-gen Separable Supports and a software-controlled workflow, the Studio System makes metal 3D printing simpler than ever. This platform offers more materials than any other metal extrusion 3D-printing system on the market. They include Inconel 625, titanium (Ti64), copper, tool steels, and stainless steels.
View the video and learn more.

Softening steel problem expands computer model applications for Sandia researchers

Sandia National Laboratories researchers Lisa Deibler and Arthur Brown had a ready-made problem for their computer modeling work when they partnered with the National Nuclear Security Administration's Kansas City Plant to improve stainless steel tubing that was too hard to meet nuclear weapon requirements.

When steel is too hard it becomes brittle, so the plant ended up getting new tubing. However, Deibler said KCP needed a backup in case it couldn't find replacements in time to meet deadlines.

Sandia National Laboratories researcher Lisa Deibler holds a tubing specimen in a grip, ready to load it into the thermal-mechanical experimental system behind her. She and Arthur Brown at Sandia's California site worked together to develop a simulation for an annealing process to soften tubing that was too hard for the requirements of the job. [Photo: Randy Montoya]

 

 

 

 

Sandia's modeling, coupled with experiments, allowed the rapid design of an annealing process to soften the tubing while keeping the metal's desired structure. The model predicted how the microstructure would be affected by variations in the process, which improved researchers' confidence that the heat treatment would produce parts that met specifications.

Brown, a modeler at Sandia's Livermore, CA, site, said working on the model was a natural extension of a larger project, supported by Sandia's Nuclear Weapons program, called Predicting Performance Margins. Under that program, numerous Sandia researchers are studying the way microstructure affects properties of materials at various scales. Brown became involved in the project as a member of a team that developed a thermal-mechanical modeling tool to predict how microstructure and other properties change during forging. That led to his collaboration with Deibler and Joe Puskar, her Sandia technical adviser, on thermal profiles for welds.

When the need arose to address the tubing issue, Puskar contacted Brown to see if he could work with Deibler to help optimize a heat treatment, Brown said.

Experiments, modeling work together
Deibler, a postdoctoral appointee in Sandia's Materials Characterization and Performance Department in Albuquerque, provided experimental data that Brown fed into his model of stainless steel recrystallization. Recrystallization, in which grains in deformed microstructures are replaced by strain-free grains, occurs during annealing -- the process of heating metal to dissipate energy built up while the metal is compressed, twisted, or otherwise worked. Heat makes the metal softer and more ductile.

Deibler and Brown were able to solve the plant's real-life problem since recrystallization is part of the annealing process. And they were able to do it quickly because the model already existed.

Deibler's experiments indicated it was important to model two softening mechanisms: recovery and recrystallization. Recovery happens first within a microstructure when material is heated and softens. By measuring the hardness and the amount of recrystallization after each heat treatment, the team identified how much softening was due to recovery.

"It was important to model both softening mechanisms because we were seeing microstructures that contained no new recrystallized grains, but which had changed properties from the initial deformed material," Deibler said. "By failing to include the effects of recovery, our model couldn't predict why the properties weren't the same as the initial deformed material. Adding in recovery allowed us to account for the changed properties in microstructures with no recrystallization."

She described the work in a poster, "Design of a Heat Treatment to Soften Stainless Steel Tubing," presented at Sandia's winter 2012 Post-Doctoral Technical Showcase.

Heated furnace experiments form baseline
The team first developed a baseline for the model. Deibler performed heat experiments on the steel tubing since she didn't know the conditions under which it was manufactured. That effort required "a lot of shipping tubing around the country for various heat treatments," she recalled.

She put tubing samples in Sandia's thermal-mechanical experimental system at various temperatures for different lengths of time. Then she had the tubing sectioned, polished, and etched, and analyzed the images to see how much the microstructures had recrystallized. Brown fit her data with the model to simulate different heat treatments.

The simulation also required details about the furnace where the tubing would be softened. Heating a furnace quickly tends to overshoot the desired temperature, so the team used the model to determine whether it was better to heat the furnace quickly or slowly raise it to the correct temperature, Deibler said. Once Brown identified the optimal rate of increase and other factors, KCP technicians filled a furnace with tubing and measured temperatures at several locations inside. Brown then ran those profiles through the model, which allowed him to predict the impact of temperature variations on the tubing's final properties.

Forging, welding considered for computer model
The researchers want the model to handle both forging and welding because in some ways the two processes work against one another. Forging steel gives it a strong microstructure, but welding adds heat that can destroy those properties. "So if you were able to model that process, that would provide a lot more confidence in the overall modeling that their parts aren't going to fail," Deibler said.

In the future, the researchers want to use the model for all kinds of welding at Sandia: laser welding, resistance welding, and gas tungsten arc welding. Types of welding vary in their thermal rates -- how fast something is heated.

"Looking at how different heating and cooling rates affect the microstructure during welding would give us valuable information," Deibler said.

Sandia National Laboratories is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Source: Sandia

Published May 2013

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