Unlocking the advantages of metal 3D printing to optimize parts and increase performance
The quest for lightweighting – the ability to make metal parts lighter – is prompting a whole new way to think about the design and manufacturing of metal products. A key lightweighting enabler is metal additive manufacturing, also known as Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS), Direct Metal Printing (DMP), or metal 3D printing. Metal additive manufacturing produces high quality, complex metal parts from 3D CAD data. In the metal printing process, typically a high-precision laser is directed onto metal powder particles to selectively build up horizontal metal layers, one after the other. This allows for unique shapes and features to be manufactured that are impossible to achieve through traditional manufacturing processes, including performance optimized parts that use less material.
Engineers are tasked with delivering constant improvements to the parts and systems they design. In aviation, aerospace, automotive and motorsports, the drive for lighter parts stems from the desire to improve fuel efficiency, reduce operating costs and lower emissions to meet stringent regulatory standards. The recent rush to send smaller and lighter objects into space has caused aerospace companies and agencies to focus their critical research on finding new ways to reduce part size, part count and part weight. Every ounce reduced from the weight of an air- or spacecraft equates to a significant reduction in required fuel and cost over time.
To help you understand how metal additive manufacturing can help you design and manufacture lighter weight parts, 3D Systems is offering a new recorded webinar: “How Metal Additive Manufacturing Delivers New Efficiencies in Lightweight Parts.”
Join aerospace engineer and additive manufacturing veteran Bryan Hodgson as he explains how the integrated combination of Design for Additive Manufacturing (DFAM) software, advanced metal additive manufacturing, and thoroughly developed metal materials and print parameters is leading to a revolution in the way metal parts are designed and produced.