MEDIA
extensive core assemblies. Hoosier Pattern often ships cores that will be placed in traditional green sand or nobake molds in metalcasting facilities. “You can make the mold your
way and have a core inside that is made with a 3D printer. You can have a green sand cope with a printed drag, if that is what it takes to get the design you want,” Mur- ray said. “Right now, we are doing some production runs of over 2,000 pieces a year. In the realm of aircraft, marine and heavy equipment, this is very doable.” OEMs are also using the technol-
ogy to serve as gap fi llers when a few parts are needed right away while tool- ing is made for full production, or when a legacy part needs to be replaced and the tooling no longer exists. “It’s not going to be the answer
every time,” Murray said. “It is going to serve a niche to solve a techni-
cal problem. And when it does that, everyone feels like a champion.”
Hurdles
Because the technology and invest- ment in equipmenr required is expen- sive and so few domestic businesses have 3D printing capabilities, additive manufacturing in sand has only been adopted by a few, but that is changing. “It’s interesting that work in sand
printing technology has been ignored until recently,” Grimm said. “But now it has been a growth area and one of interest to people.” Organizations such as the Addi-
tive Manufacturing Users Group have been collaborating with additive manufacturing equipment suppliers and colleges such as UNI to fi nd ways to reduce cost and help industry gain full value of the process. “T e cost is relatively high, but the cost benefi ts are relatively high,” T iel said. “T e industry has to determine
RESOURCE Using the Actable App, scan this page
to see a video of additive manu- facturing in action at Hoosier Pat- tern. To watch online, go to
www.metalcastingtv.com.
the sweet spot for cost eff ectiveness.” T rough its Metal Casting Center, UNI hopes to build a portfolio of successful additive manufacturing case studies in sand to help develop the market for potential users or providers of the technology. “We think improving the acces-
sibility and availability of the technol- ogy to companies in the Midwest is a hurdle,” T iel said. “We want to show companies—not just foundries, but also equipment manufacturers and entrepre- neurs—that this is a viable process and has fl exibility in design not available in conventional coremaking.”
32 | MODERN CASTING December 2013
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