have developed several innovations to support treatment and containment of the coronavirus, including: • A 3D printed door handle attachment, which allows users to open doors using covered forearms rather than bare hands.


•


A 3D printed connector to adapt Scuba masks to allow for air filtration and oxygen supply. Now as businesses gradually reopen, managers will take steps to safeguard their staff. To support a safe return to business environments, Materialise is offering a series of devices to prevent the


spread of infection, 3D-printed face mask clips.


Pattern Innovation At Materialise Earlier this century, printer bed sizes on the market simply weren’t large enough for the projects Materialise customers were


commissioning, particularly


prototypes for the automotive industry. So, Materialise decided to build their own Mammoth Stereolithography machines. Currently, these large machines can produce an entire car dashboard in one build. As a Stereolithography (SLA) machine, a Mammoth printer processes resin materials and is, among other 3D printing technologies, known for having the best surface quality and accuracy. Those


same By properties replacing wax were in


demand at the foundries casting titanium and nickel-based parts for the aerospace industry.


patterns


with 3D-printed patterns, the foundries could eliminate or delay the need for time-consuming and expensive tooling. In response, Materialise began by supplying 3D-printed patterns to produce prototypes of structural parts. Today, 10 years later, the company also produces patterns for complex airfoil parts and for small series of casted end-use parts.


including


In this context, Materialise also targets complex patterns for casted parts where CNC post processing is constrained because of intricate geometries. Materialise is a partner for foundries


developing investment casting patterns for the European market thanks to synergies from its software, engineering and production capabilities resulting in innovative solutions.


Their ICCI


(Investment Casting Continuous Improvement) team supports foundries to find the best technical solutions and to help improve throughput time by proving the feasibility of complex casting via fast iterations.


Better Than Wax? “Based on technical data and practical experience, we see that our patterns are becoming technically and commercially better than wax for even more applications. From a technical perspective, we focus on elimination of shell cracks, dimensional accuracy and surface quality,” explains Michael D’Hoore from Materialise. Shell cracks are mainly caused by expansion forces of wax and SLA patterns. “Our view is that SLA models can and should have lower expansion forces than wax. SLA models are therefore hollowed using


advanced software tools and use the latest engineering know how. The idea is to guarantee strength and accuracy during investment while eliminating expansion forces during heat up by making the internal lattice structure collapse in time. We furthermore managed to match wax patterns in terms of dimensional accuracy and surface quality.”


Looking Forward


One of the major problems encountered with SLA patterns comes from the positive expansion coefficient of the material used for SLA resulting in a lower yield related to shell crack. Because of this, SLA patterns were mainly used in flash fire processes and were difficult to use in combination of an autoclave based process. Materialise has therefore developed a solution using its software which managed to reduce expansion forces up to such a level (lower by a factor of 10) that most foundries with an autoclave can use SLA patterns while foundries with a flash fire see a drastically improved yield comparable with wax. More info on Materialise and its 3D printed solutions can be found on www.materialise.com


May 2020 ❘ 23 ®


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