NewsDesk Deals, Openings, Acquisitions, Partnerships, Orders, Expansions, Awards Hybrid Additive-Subtractive Machine Attracts Crowds H
undreds of manufacturing professionals poured into the headquarters of DMG MORI USA in Hoffman Estates, IL, for the company’s annual Innovation Days event, held May 6–9. But while the machine builder launched a significant new touchpad-style control panel and several new machines, it was a prototype hybrid machine that attracted crowds and stole the show: a LASERTEC 4300 3D, which will formally debut at IMTS 2014.
The hybrid additive-subtractive machine is the second in the past year from DMG MORI, showing the fruitful results of the 2009 partnership between Mori Seiki of Japan and DMG of Germany. DMG MORI’s LASERTEC 65, which debuted in late 2013 and begins shipping later this year, was the first machine that integrated additive manufacturing, or 3D printing techniques, into a five-axis milling machine. It is based on a DMU 65 monoBLOCK machine. The LASERTEC 4300 3D, meanwhile, is based on the turn- mill center NT4300SZ from Iga, Japan and is equipped with powerful diode lasers for the deposition of metal. Production of the LASERTEC 4300 3D begins later this year, with shipping expected in 2015.
Rather than use a powder bed, as many additive manu- facturing machines do, both of DMG MORI’s hybrid ma-
operators with many new manufacturing strategies, decisions and challenges—in addition to the benefits of being able to add and subtract metal in one machine.
DMG MORI displays parts that were made with hybrid additive-subtractive manufacturing.
One strength of this process is the option to successively build up layers of different materials. Wall thicknesses of 0.02–0.2 in (0.5–5 mm) are possible depending on the laser and the nozzle geometry. Complex 3D contours can also be generated in layers without supports. The individual layers can then be accurately machined before the areas become inaccessible to a cutter or other tools due to interference with subsequently deposited component geometry.
“The rules are changing.” Gregory Hyatt, Senior Vice President, CTO, DMG MORI USA
chines use a metal deposition process in which a powder nozzle sprays metallic powder into the laser beam, melting the powder in layers into the base material. DMG MORI said the process is up to 20 times faster than laser sintering in a powder bed. Most common metal powders can be processed, including steel, nickel and cobalt alloys, and brass. The laser systems were developed by DMG MORI in con- junction with SAUER GmbH (Pfronten, Germany). Siemens (Munich, Germany) is providing critical software support in this emerging hybrid manufacturing field, which presents
Gregory Hyatt, Senior Vice President and Chief Technol- ogy Officer for DMG MORI USA, said the hybrid machines open up the possibility of “a completely new business model” for manufacturers and told Manufacturing Engineering that demand is already outstripping supply for the models. “The rules are changing,” Hyatt said.
Hyatt stressed that there are many new challenges that early adopters will have to work through in using the machine. For example, he noted, “Now, we have to make decisions about the sequence in which we build.”
June 2014 |
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