A 3D printer. - dpa
HAMBURG: It's a technology that has arrived in millions of people's daily lives, but mostly remains unnoticed.
From hearing aids to dental crowns, and from cars to planes, a wide range of products are being shaped by additive manufacturing (AM), better known as 3D printing.
One area where the technology is increasingly cropping up is in engineering, with Siemens gas turbines, MTU aircraft engines and Rolls-Royce motor cars all making use of AM.
Between its burled walnut dashboards and leather seats, RollS-Royce has been using 3D-printed plastic holders for hazard lights, electronic parking brakes and sockets produced in series for the past few years.
The luxury automaker's parent company, Munich-based BMW, has already equipped many of its factories with AM machines. When a component is needed in the United States or China, it's faster and cheaper to make it on a 3D printer.
The machines are particularly well suited for producing small quantities of complex components. Tools and casting moulds don't have to be produced, and there's also no need for manual labour or for material-intensive drilling and milling a workpiece from a solid block, as is usually the case in conventional, subtractive manufacturing.
In 3D printing, a powder material - typically plastic, ceramic or metal - is melted and fused with a laser beam or infrared lamp, grain by grain, layer by layer, until the desired object is created on a build platform using a computer file as a blueprint. The layers are only hundredths of a millimetre thick.
The process results in completely new honeycomb-like structures that would be impossible to make with conventional techniques. They are lightweight yet highly stable, with hollow spaces that can't be produced by drilling or injection moulding.
So might it be possible to 3D-print an entire car?
"Even in 20 years there won't be a 3D-printed automobile," says Udo Haenle, head of Production Strategy and Technical Integration at BMW's Research and Innovation Centre.
However, he admits that there is already a prototype, containing more than 3,000 additive-manufactured components.
At the very least, manufacturers will no longer warehouse the rarely needed spare parts for older car models, but 3D-print them for customers as required.
Car manufacturers are just one part of the boom in 3D-printing, with a recent study from professional services company EY (formerly Ernst & Young) showing that 3D-printed products generate annual revenues of nearly US$11bil worldwide, says EY consultant Andreas Mueller.
Meanwhile in the aviation industry, AM pays off especially fast since the lighter an aircraft is, the less fuel it burns.
Airbus CEO Tom Enders forecasts that "by 2030 so many metal parts will be replaceable by lighter elements from 3D printers that an Airbus A350 can save about a tonne in weight."
The aircraft maker is now 3D-printing double-walled titanium fuel pipes and is now testing 3D-printed cabin walls in the Airbus A320. If all A320s had such walls, Enders says, the environment would be spared 465,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
While AM is increasingly becoming a reality in the automotive industry, 3D printing for cars at home or even in repair shops is a far-off dream.
Due to the high acquistion costs of 3D printers and the know-how needed to operate them, even small and medium-sized businesses still remain on the sidelines of this technology, Mueller says.
The cost of these machines, the size of a clothes cupboard, runs as high as 2 million euros.
Looking ahead, BMW says it is hard to imagine every large auto repair shop having one. They're simply too expensive.
