Initial Situation:
For a number of years, technology has been trending towards additive manufacturing using plastics as a process for producing small volumes of components for specific products. Powder-bed-based selective laser sintering (SLS) is the technology with the greatest potential. This technique can already be used to produce components cost-effectively in small volumes without tools, from thermoplastics that are typically used in conventional manufacturing processes. The final components have mechanical properties comparable to parts that are produced using traditional techniques. The trend towards customisation as well as the increase in specially commissioned and bespoke solutions in a wide range of industries have triggered growth in demand for customised series production. Given the high costs of production, it is difficult to meet such a demand with conventional manufacturing techniques. Thanks to improvements in cost-effectiveness, the latest generation of SLS technology is one solution that can satisfy this demand. There are, however, still challenges to investigate and define in the areas of materials, automation, post-processing, reproducibility and quality management before the technique can be used competitively.
Goals:
The goal of the project is to develop, optimise and validate a cost-effective, automated and digitalised manufacturing chain for additive manufacturing with plastic powders, end-to-end from the material to a component with a high-quality surface finish. The aim is also for the chain to produce volumes of up to 50,000 units in real-world scenarios, while being competitive on cost compared with conventional manufacturing methods, such as injection moulding. Specific real-life applications from consortium partner REHAU Industries SE & Co. KG are being used as the basis for the R&D work.
Process:
A consortium with a wide range of expertise in additive manufacturing, automation, surface engineering, mechanical engineering, materials and applications has been put together to achieve the goal of the project described above. Given the highly complex nature of the planned project, it has been divided into seven work packages with defined leads, who were selected on the basis of the expertise of the specific partners in the consortium.
