Automobile manufacturing is an important application field of metal 3D printing technology. From rapid manufacturing of prototypes to speed up the efficiency of new car research and development, to direct production of small batch parts, shortening the supply chain and saving costs, 3D printing can be said to be an important complementary technology in the automotive industry. In addition, the unique advantages of 3D printing in manufacturing complex parts can simplify the number of automotive parts, reduce weight, and save materials. It can be said that 3D printing technology has many advantages for automobile manufacturing. Even so, the technology is not widely used in the field so far. That’s because the ability to build more complex parts faster, cheaper, and more quickly—that’s how cars will be built in the future.
Additive Manufacturing in the Automotive Industry Today
In the automotive field, the earliest adopters of additive manufacturing technology were not the automakers themselves, but the teams they sponsored. For decades, companies from Ford to Ferrari have used race cars as incubators to test new technologies. Many of the features now standard in new cars — regenerative braking systems in hybrids, push-button ignition systems and even rearview mirrors — can be traced back to their roots. The same principle applies to 3D printing, especially metal printing. Formula 1 teams, World Endurance Challenge teams, Formula E teams and many more teams have experienced first-hand that the benefits of additive manufacturing – rapid iteration of designs, rapid prototyping and component lightweighting – can all be achieved in Improve vehicle performance on the track.
If 3D printing has so many manufacturing advantages, why hasn’t it been widely adopted by automakers?
Essentially, it comes down to three factors – cost, materials and speed.
Laser 3D printing of complex automotive parts
The types of materials that 3D printing technology is currently compatible with are also very limited. Taking plastics as an example, most materials that can currently be molded can only meet limited needs. For the higher-demand applications of automobile manufacturers, existing materials cannot even pass laboratory tests.
The cost of raw materials based on this technology is very high. Even after significant price cuts, metal powders still cost hundreds or even more than a thousand yuan per kilogram, and finished parts may cost hundreds to thousands of yuan per kilogram—too high for mass production.
When it comes to speed, even the best machines can’t compete with mass production. The fastest powder bed fusion equipment can only produce 100 cubic centimeters per hour.
While 3D printing has already been successful in the automotive sector, particularly motorsport that can afford to pay the high cost of printing complex parts in order to win, only more cost-effectiveness will allow it to expand into a wider range of manufacturing processes. Cost, material and speed challenges have limited the technology’s use in the automotive manufacturing industry, and most parts are still produced using traditional methods such as casting, forging, machining and stamping.
Laser powder bed fusion is better suited for low-volume, high-value applications
To date, the most widely used 3D printing system, laser powder bed fusion technology, uses lasers to melt thin metal powder layer by layer until the part is manufactured. This technology can quickly and accurately prepare metal parts, and has been widely used in automobile manufacturing in the past ten years. Companies such as BMW, Ford, Volkswagen, and Mercedes-Benz have all established typical cases in the use of this technology, and have achieved mass manufacturing under certain conditions. However, the parts involved in these cases are still mostly limited to high-end brands, and the total volume is still limited.
The reasons are still inseparable from the cost, material and speed requirements in this field. Laser powder bed fusion equipment requires a large upfront investment—a full system costs $1 million or more—and only produces 1 ton of parts per year, which is not enough to justify the cost. In addition, even though 3D printing makes metal parts manufacturing more flexible, printing is only the first step, and a series of post-processing processes such as support removal are required, further increasing the cost of the parts.
So far, a series of high-value applications in the automotive field have originated from the significant manufacturing advantages of laser powder bed fusion technology – the characteristics of integration, high precision and complex manufacturing. For example, General Motors used generative design and 3D printing to integrate eight components of the traditional car seat frame into one component. Bugatti used 3D printing technology to manufacture the new Chiron brake caliper. Porsche used a series of innovative designs to 3D print an aluminum alloy engine. Shell prototypes, BMW’s batch-printed soft-top brackets for the i8 Roadster sports car, and more. Whether these cases are used for prototypes or final use, they are inseparable from the unique manufacturing characteristics of laser powder bed fusion technology. But there is also a characteristic: these applications are very limited, almost all belong to high-end brands, and few can meet the requirements of low-cost, mass manufacturing in this field.
Extrusion-based desktop metal 3D printing suitable for prototyping
The extrusion-based desktop metal 3D printer features an office-friendly design that eliminates the risk of dust and laser exposure, making it an easier-to-use end-to-end solution.
For users in the early stages of new car design and manufacturing, desktop metal 3D printers are 10 times cheaper and more convenient to operate than traditional powder bed equipment. Such systems can quickly prototype large numbers of parts in-house, quickly test different ideas and explore new structural possibilities, saving time and money during long and expensive design cycles. The result is better designs at lower development costs and allows companies to quickly move from design and verification to production, speeding time to market. Flexible operability also helps reduce costs as it reduces material waste and eliminates the need to recruit specialist staff specifically to operate the machine.
This technology can print a wide range of materials, including H13 tool steel, 4140 chromium steel, 316L and 17-4 PH stainless steel, etc., and is very suitable for auto parts development, tooling and spare parts manufacturing. Currently, the more representative desktop extruded metal 3D printing brands include Desktop Metal, Raise3D, Sublimation 3D, Markforged, etc.
Take a car’s shock absorbers, for example. They provide damping to reduce motion in the shock components and achieve a smoother ride by channeling hydraulic fluid through complex internal passages. Due to the complex internal geometry of the piston, traditional manufacturing requires the assembly of multiple parts. However, desktop metal 3D printers can print parts in a single step, shortening delivery time and reducing costs.
17-4ph shock absorber piston manufactured using desktop extrusion metal 3D printing technology
The geometric freedom brought by 3D printing also allows manufacturers to rapidly prototype and explore new piston designs while eliminating the need to outsource the work. Prototyping parts on a desktop metal printer also helps smooth the transition to volume production, since high-volume systems like binder jetting can produce equally complex designs. (Case source: Desktop Metal)
Binder jet metal 3D printing is more suitable for high-volume part manufacturing
The most prominent feature of the binder jetting process is that it can realize batch manufacturing of metal 3D printing. The price of equipment based on this process is lower than that of traditional laser 3D printers. The printing speed is dozens or even hundreds of times that of four-laser powder bed fusion equipment. The material used is traditional MIM powder, which is cheaper than spherical powder. The manufacturing cost of parts Therefore, it is dozens of times lower than laser 3D printed parts. Therefore, the binder jetting process exceeds metal 3D printing in terms of equipment cost, powder cost and printing efficiency. Even if its part performance is slightly lower, it is still at the same level as injection molded parts. Therefore, this technology is more suitable for high-volume parts manufacturing.
Based on the above advantages, major automobile OEMs are currently accelerating the use of this technology. Leading binder jet metal 3D printing developers have secured cooperation from major brands in the automotive industry: Volkswagen is actively collaborating with HP, Ford is also using ExOne’s binder jet technology to manufacture automotive parts, and Desktop Metal recently obtained It won a US$7.9 million contract with a German automaker, and the industry speculated that the customer may be BMW Group.
Desktop Metal bet jetting 3D sand printer
So, how does this technology enable batch manufacturing of parts from thousands to hundreds of thousands?
There are several reasons why manufacturers may initially produce small quantities of a part before mass-producing it. In the early stages of production of a particular car, even though it may eventually produce hundreds of thousands of cars, the manufacturer may initially only produce a few hundred as a market test before starting mass production. Another reason is that production of high-performance cars like the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 is often limited—in 2010, Ford built just 2,000 of the car—which means the automaker may just have to tweak every part. Only a few thousand will be produced. For aftermarket parts, meanwhile, the number may be even smaller—the market demand for a particular part may be only a few hundred.
Binder jetting is suitable for stack printing, which greatly improves the efficiency of 3D printing manufacturing.
For parts that require mass production, another advantage of binder jet metal 3D printing is even more obvious – moldless manufacturing. The technology eliminates the need for molds, allowing engineers to take an already refined design—whether through desktop extrusion metal 3D printing technology or traditional prototyping methods—and bring it to mass production via binder jet metal 3D printing. With printing speeds that can compete with traditional large-scale manufacturing processes, binder jet metal 3D printing allows the production of thousands of parts in a single job at a price and production speed that can compete with processes such as casting, forging and machining. This speed, coupled with the use of low-cost MIM powder and simple post-processing, allows the process to produce parts that may cost up to 20 times less per unit than other 3D printing processes, and makes additive manufacturing a viable alternative to casting, forging and machining. Viable options.
Take the innovatively designed automobile water pump wheel as an example. It circulates through the engine and radiator cooling to dissipate the heat generated during the combustion process. Unlike other products, however, the part is designed as a whole, which allows it to operate more efficiently and improve performance by reducing weight. Because the part geometry is complex and cannot be created by casting or forging, the waterwheel is manufactured using metal 3D printing. While parts created using SLM have been successfully demonstrated on cars, the cost per part is too high for production vehicles. . Using binder jet metal 3D printing, up to 150 parts can be created at a time, and the cost of each part can be reduced to $5, making it more economical.
