Supporting materials, or 3D printing technology, according to the computer design model, the material is manufactured by the method of material-filled method, and is sent to a comprehensive innovative manufacturing. However, despite the wide report of the media, the additive manufacturing has not yet been applied in actual production practice.
In theory, additive manufacturing technology can make better products, including more product types, better product performance, longer life and lighter weight. At the same time, the technology will also bring a simplification of production processes and processes. For example, due to the shorteness of the production cycle, the production site is more flexible, and the production tool is simplified, and the production waste is greatly reduced compared to traditional processes.
Although the overall market is small, the additive manufacturing industry is developing rapidly and has strong growth. At present, the global additive manufacturing market is approximately $ 7 billion, and it is expected that the compound growth rate in the next year will be as high as 24%, and the market size of 2021 is approximately $ 26.5 billion.
The additive manufacturing market is generally based on photopolymer and thermoplastic material, and metal materials only account for only a small part, but in recent years, metal printing this segment is developing rapidly, bringing new parts for parts in industrial products. Possible.
Whether metal printing can meet the needs of large-scale commercial production of automobiles such as production efficiency, quality stability and cost control, still unknown. However, there is reason to believe that metal printing once a large-scale application will have to change the current industrial production.
Consider manufacturers and investors involved in metal printing industries, compllence, to meet the possible reforms. The development of competition strategies should be based on the insight into the application of metal printing technology and its value chain, so it is expected to grasp the short-term, medium-term and long-term industrial turning points.
1. Additive Manufacturing Industry Value Chain
It is understood that the additive manufacturing industry includes six steps along the upstream, manufacturing and service value chains (see Figure 2). Among them, the upstream module is especially important, and the highly complex components are required to convert highly complex components into drawings and 3D models (involving design, scanning, printing, and inspection software). Many companies have entered this value chain module.
In the past few years, companies in the additive manufacturing industry have experienced multi-wheeled entrepreneurship and integration, and head manufacturers established the leading position in the industry. Autodesk and Materialise are the most important additive manufacturing software vendors, and some corporate services involve multiple links of industry value chains, such as Stratasys production 3D printers and subsequent processing. Some 3D printer producers also produce metal powders themselves, but with the maturity of industry division, they began to purchase special metal powder manufacturers.
It is expected that the industry value chain will continue to evolve rapidly, with the decline in material cost and the simplification of the production process, the unit production efficiency of additive manufacturing will be greatly improved, and ultimately lead significant industries. The intermediate link of the value chain will be simplified, especially in the production and production of subsequent processing.
Production processes will be reshaped and reorganized, developing a seamless link end-to-end value chain. Integration can be reached through the strategic cooperation between the internal value chain extension or enterprises, OEM vendors, especially, to enhance the in-depth understanding of the value chains. Among them, intellectual property protection, software research and development and design capabilities are particularly important.
Increased production efficiency, new product and product quality improvement, will further stimulate the growth of demand, enterprise grasp and utilize opportunities, and spare parts production and renovation will be two most important recent opportunities. .
2. Metal print pioneer: SIEMENS and GE
In February 2017, Siemens launched the gas turbine blades produced by metal printing technology, indicating the major changes that will bring significant changes from the previously designed to produce post-production.
Siemens first develops a gas turbine blade sample based on metal printing technology, and the sample is used to resist high pressure capability test (including physical pressurization, high temperature and high degree of effort). After mounting the sample to the turbine and successfully tested, Siemens starts mass production. Metal printing turbine blades, develop turbine parts of components.
Siemens mainly benefits from the internal integration of the application and production of metal printing technology, SIEMENS is as follows:
Easy to continuously improve design, optimize turbine blade product performance
Comprehensively master core intellectual property rights
Provide multiple complex links such as casting and punching in traditional production processes
Provincial supply vendors and improve product profit margins
By applying metal printing techniques, Siemens's entire production cycle is only 18 months, compared with traditional production processes, the production cycle is greatly shortened. In addition, parts metal printing techniques can also be replaced by engineering design of other products, and prepare for product types of SIEMENS future metal printing technology.
In addition, Siemens also successfully applied metal printing technology to the maintenance of turbine nozzles. Previously, the maintenance of the nozzle needs to replace most of the nozzles and reinstall the new nozzle with a conventional approach. Today, by the application of metal printing technology, it is only necessary to replace a small portion of the nozzle, and then fill it with a metal printing part. The maintenance cycle is shorten from 44 weeks to 4 weeks, which greatly improves customer supply efficiency and reduces maintenance costs.
GE is another pioneer that applies metal printing technology to its entirety. It has a total investment of $ 1.5 billion in the development of metal printing technology, of which $ 50 million is used in investing in a factory in Alabama, mainly producing metal printing Leap aircraft engine fuel nozzles (expected to reach 35,000 nozzles in 2020. ). Compared with a conventional fuel nozzle consisting of 20 parts, the fuel nozzle produced by metal printing technology is a holistic part with a reduction of 25% by weight, and the service life is prolonged. The weight of the nozzle is reduced to fuel costs for the aviation industry.
3. Innovative application of metal printing technology
According to the preparation of technical documents, although the metal printing market is still in the bud state, GE, SIEMENS and Michelin / Fives' Addup and other enterprise printing technological innovations are not an example. Multi-class metals are widely used in many industries such as aerospace, auto, navigation, medicine and dental.
However, metal printing technology is currently used in small and medium complex high-value components, and these components itself does not require large-scale yields, and the cases of Siemens are the case.
One of the large factors is that the powder bed fusion technology is still a mainstream, and the metal powder layer region is selectively melted by thermal energy. Most of the markets (about 80%) of the metal printers are this technology.
Then, an emerging metal printing technology, the Directed Energy Deposition, is being raised. Compared with traditional powder bed fusion techniques, the production efficiency is more efficient and can produce greater and more complex components at lower unit costs, and will further promote innovation in the field of metal printing technology.
In the short term, metal printing technology is used in large-scale production industrial metal components, and it is not much likely to replace traditional production processes, but technology is developing more industry opportunities. In the future, many links under traditional production technology will further reduce and integrate, bringing streamlined throughout the industry value chain.
For OEM vendors, there is a highly mature software that is important for product design and production process. It is especially important to have a comprehensive ability to cross the entire value chain, which can be done through strategic cooperation between enterprises.
This will be a progressive development industry that requires vendors to re-examine their business model, identify the core competitiveness of successful application of 3D printing technology.
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