Prodways deepens dedication to ceramic AM

At its facility in Montigny-le-Bretonneux, France, Prodways Machines has developed its most superior ceramic additive manufacturing system to this point, the CERAM PRO. The platform, first unveiled in Could 2024, is predicated on the corporate’s patented MOVINGLight DLP know-how and was engineered to fulfill the necessities of industries like aerospace, automotive, and funding casting.

As we’ll see in additional element all through this function, the CERAM PRO is the results of years of expertise in ceramic additive manufacturing and is a key step in Prodways Machines’ technique to focus more and more on the ceramic market. As Prodways Machines Advertising and marketing Supervisor Sébastien Jacoberger, instructed us: “Whereas we had up to now wax and SLS 3D printers, we’ve determined to deepen our focus in particular markets like ceramic and dental and to concentrate on one know-how: MOVINGLight.”

Honing in on MOVINGLight

Prodways’ MOVINGLight is a proprietary digital gentle processing (DLP) know-how that’s primarily based on a top-down method. This methodology permits for higher precision and accelerates printing occasions by positioning the projector above the vat of resin and eliminating the necessity to detach every layer from the print window—as is important in a bottom-up method. The method can also be characterised by its cell projector (aka the shifting gentle), which allows higher print speeds, constant print accuracy, and excessive element throughout the construct, no matter whether or not the print is on the heart of the projection or the sting of it. Prodways Machines has tailored totally different variations of its MOVINGLight know-how: it has a sequence of MOVINGLight dental 3D printers, together with the ProMaker LD10 and LD20, in addition to a sequence optimized for processing ceramic resins. This sequence consists of varied variations of the CERAM PRO, just like the CERAM PRO 365, CERAM PRO 385, CERAM PRO 385+, and CERAM PRO 405+.

The CERAM PRO sequence does bear various similarities to the ProMaker MOVINGLight platforms, nonetheless it additionally has some key variations. The ceramic-specific machines have a higher-end projector than the dental methods, with particular wavelengths and optical high quality optimized for processing technical ceramic resins like silica and alumina. For instance, the CERAM PRO 365 has a wavelength of 365nm, whereas the CERAM PRO 405 has a wavelength of 405. When it comes to decision, the CERAM PRO 365 is provided with a single high-power DLP unit and is able to attaining a really excessive native decision of 31 μm per pixel. On the bigger CERAM PRO 385 and 405 methods, it’s potential to have twin projector functionality and obtain tolerances of 42 μm.

Prodways’ newest platform can also be notable for its construct capability: the CERAM PRO 365 measures as much as 264 x 328 x 350 mm, whereas the 405 has a most construct capability of as much as 300 x 445 x 350 mm. As Jacoberger says: “Now we have one of many largest ceramic AM platforms and the Z-height is without doubt one of the highest current in the marketplace, which provides a bonus for printing a number of elements in a single construct. However we even have a modular platform, so the construct envelope may be extra compact for smaller manufacturing runs.”

An open-parameter answer

An necessary factor to learn about Prodways’ ceramic AM methods is that they’ve open parameters, enabling prospects to work with their very own supplies or their ceramic resins of alternative. That is the case with Prodways Machine buyer Renaissance Companies, which has been utilizing the corporate’s ceramic resin 3D printing know-how for over six years now.

Again in 2017, the Fairborn, Ohio firm—an enterprise methods integration firm primarily working with aerospace and protection firms—adopted Prodways’ ProMaker L5000 system to provide ceramic elements for the funding casting business. This included the manufacturing of ceramic cores, molds, and filters that may be utilized by foundries within the manufacturing of plane, engines, and help gear for aerospace and protection shoppers. On the time, a very worthwhile software for ceramic AM was making castings for legacy navy methods, which might facilitate the manufacturing of in any other case out of date elements like gearboxes and housings courting way back to the Fifties.

“For a lot of of those castings there’s scant technical knowledge and the tooling now not exists,” Renaissance Companies co-founder Robert Morris stated on the time. “New tooling usually prices six figures and takes months to provide. We pursue an idea of ‘CAD as tooling’ to provide a ceramic mildew utilizing our personal patent-pending course of. We then work with the foundry to provide a casting identical to the unique, filling a important value and lead time hole. We not too long ago used {our capability}, working with a manufacturing foundry, to go from CAD mannequin to a completed legacy engine gearbox casting in 26 days. This can be a marked distinction from the two-year lead occasions that we’ve heard about from the navy sustainment group.”

The open nature of Prodways’ ceramic AM platforms—even previous to the CERAM PRO—has enabled Renaissance to work with its personal technical ceramic-filled photopolymer resins that meet the necessities of the corporate’s casting-specific purposes.

Certified SINTX resins

Along with with the ability to use their very own supplies, Prodways shoppers may also depend on technical ceramic resins which have been certified for the corporate’s {hardware}. These certified supplies are developed and equipped by superior ceramics firm SINTX, which has been working with 3D printing since 1998 and has been a key participant in advancing ceramic AM, and its subsidiary Expertise Evaluation and Switch, Inc., which has been a long-time companion of Prodways. The corporate, which has been utilizing Prodways ceramic 3D printing know-how since 2018, not too long ago entered into a proper technical partnership to provide ceramic slurries for Prodways’ newest {hardware} options.

Up to now, SINTX’s silica and alumina slurries have been certified to be used on the CERAM PRO 365. “Prodways has had a really early publicity to ceramics 3D printing,” defined Vincent Icart, CTO and COO of Prodways. “Earlier than this partnership, we had been solely supplying prospects with inner capabilities improvement. We’re thrilled to bolster our particularly developed MovingLight machineries with SINTX slurries, as our joint experience will permit us to be an end-to-end answer supplier for probably the most demanding ceramic printing purposes.”

The silica-based slurry, obtainable underneath the product title SILICA SiCast 1200, was engineered for funding casting purposes and particularly the funding casting of tremendous alloys. The ceramic slurry is characterised by its excessive hardness, and corrosion and temperature resistance.

It additionally demonstrates good inexperienced power and minimal densification after sintering. Particular purposes for the technical ceramic embrace casting cores, ceramic shell casting, aerospace brakes, engine parts, funding casting patterns, electrical insulation coatings, and extra. SILICA SiCast 1200 is certified to be used on the CERAM PRO 365.

SINTX’s alumina resin, for its half, ALUMINA PHOTX A100, is a flexible and fast-curing materials that meets the wants of many alternative purposes. The high-purity alumina (99%) is obtainable in numerous viscosities (excessive and low), has wonderful mechanical properties, and is immune to excessive temperatures and corrosion. Prodways highlights various purposes for the alumina ceramic, together with however not restricted to electronics, electrical insulation parts, RF antenna home windows, high-speed missile radomes, wear-resistant coatings, ceramic substrates, LED phosphors, and extra.

Reworking turbine blade manufacturing at Honeywell

Funding casting is without doubt one of the key software areas Prodways is focusing on with its ceramic AM know-how and its options are already in use at many industrial firms. Multinational Honeywell is one in all these adopters, as it’s leveraging Prodways ceramic 3D printing to immediately print ceramic molds for first-stage high-pressure turbine blades for next-generation turbofan jet engines. (Whereas the corporate has been working with Prodways ceramic AM for years, it not too long ago built-in the CERAM PRO 365 in 2023 at its facility in Phoenix, Arizona.)

Honeywell could very properly be one of many first jet engine producers to make use of ceramic AM within the manufacturing of turbine blades. As Brian Baughman, Honeywell Chief Manufacturing Engineer, defined: “Turbine blades are made by an funding casting course of that only some foundries on the earth can deal with. It entails machining extraordinarily  advanced steel dies and tooling to create ceramic molds, that are then forged with a molten superalloy to  type the blades.” Ceramic AM provides a extra environment friendly different to this advanced methodology, enabling sooner manufacturing occasions and considerably decrease prices.

To place the distinction between standard funding casting and ceramic 3D printed molds into perspective, it may possibly take as much as two years to provide turbine blades required for creating next-gen turbofan engines utilizing extra conventional strategies. With 3D printing, Honeywell has been capable of design and print the mildew, forged the turbine blade, then check and validate it inside simply seven to eight weeks. Moreover, if any design adjustments are wanted, it’s potential to iterate a brand new blade design in simply six weeks due to the agility and on-demand nature of 3D printing.

“Additive manufacturing allows speedy prototyping and offers us higher flexibility to speed up improvement, handle prices, and create the very best product for our prospects,” added Mike Baldwin, Principal R&D Scientist at Honeywell. “Decreasing improvement cycle time is our major goal, however we additionally anticipate saving a number of million {dollars} in improvement prices  in comparison with utilizing the standard blade casting course of.”

Along with ceramic additive manufacturing, Honeywell additionally makes use of steel AM at its Phoenix facility. The corporate, which provides turbine propulsion engines for enterprise plane, navy trainers, and helicopters, produces a whole bunch of plane elements utilizing 3D printing.

After all, Renaissance Companies and Honeywell are simply the tip of the iceberg in terms of Prodways ceramic AM adoption: the corporate reportedly has quite a few ceramic AM machines put in at foundries, aerospace prospects, and extra. The discharge of the CERAM PRO 365 and prolonged sequence marks the following step ahead for DLP-based ceramic 3D printing and a brand new period for ceramics AM extra broadly.

This text was initially printed in VoxelMatters’ VM Focus Ceramics eBook. Learn or obtain the total eBook totally free at this hyperlink.