NASA - Space Station Research: Turbine Ceramic Manufacturing Module
(Turbine CMM) demonstrates manufacture of single-piece turbine blade/disk combinations (blisks) in microgravity for commercial use. Manufacturing blisks in space could produce parts with lower mass and residual stress and higher strength than those made on Earth due to greatly reduced sedimentation of the solution in microgravity.
SCIENCE RESULTS FOR EVERYONE
The following content was provided by Michael Snyder, and is maintained in a database by the ISS Program Science Office.
Experiment Description
RESEARCH OVERVIEW
The Turbine Ceramic Manufacturing Module (Turbine CMM) investigates the capability to produce ceramic single-piece turbine blisks in microgravity for commercial use on Earth.
Turbine CMM tests whether flight samples have lower part mass and residual stress and higher strength than units manufactured on the ground.
DESCRIPTION
The Turbine Ceramic Manufacturing Module (Turbine CMM) is a commercial in-space manufacturing device designed to provide proof-of-principle for single-piece ceramic turbine blisk (blade/disk) manufacturing in microgravity for terrestrial use. The Turbine CMM project focuses on advanced materials engineering leading to reductions in part mass, residual stress and fatigue. This project is similar to the Turbine Superalloy Casting Module (Turbine SCM) device also designed by Made In Space.
Applications
SPACE APPLICATIONS
This investigation demonstrates potential use of the space station for unique manufacturing capabilities, contributing to the increased commercialization of space.
EARTH APPLICATIONS
Single-piece turbine blisks have significant advantages over current assemblies used in aircraft jet engines and integrated rotors. Successful production in microgravity may provide additional gains in decreasing the mass and residual stress of these parts and increasing their fatigue strength. This could convey significant advantages to the aviation industry.
Operations
OPERATIONAL REQUIREMENTS AND PROTOCOLS
The Turbine CMM is installed in an EXPRESS single locker location. The Turbine CMM has similar space station interfaces and controls as the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) and operates autonomously except for initial activation and parts changeout.
Manufacturing Supply Chain Startups Embrace Additive Manufacturing For Speed To Market
*** Need subscription access to get content ***
Text placeholder
Made In Space Makes History With Manufacturing @ ISS + Also Receives Prestigious NASA Award
Redwire recently announced that the company’s Ceramic Manufacturing Module (CMM) successfully manufactured a ceramic part in space for the first time.
The commercially developed in-space manufacturing facility successfully operated with full autonomy using additive stereolithography (SLA) technology and pre-ceramic resins to manufacture a single-piece ceramic turbine blisk on-orbit, along with a series of material test coupons. The successful manufacture of these test samples in space is an important milestone to demonstrate the proof-of-potential for CMM to produce ceramic parts that exceed the quality of turbine components made on Earth.
The ceramic blisk and test coupons will be stowed and returned to Earth for analysis, aboard the SpaceX Dragon CRS-21 spacecraft. CMM, developed by Redwire subsidiary Made In Space, is the first SLA printer to operate on-orbit.
CMM aims to demonstrate that ceramic manufacturing in microgravity could enable temperature-resistant, reinforced ceramic parts with better performance, including higher strength and lower residual stress. For high-performance applications such as turbines, nuclear plants, or internal combustion engines, even small strength improvements can yield years-to-decades of superior service life.
CMM was developed in partnership with the ISS Research Integration Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The ceramic facility is one of three ISS pilot payloads developed through this partnership that aims to catalyze and scale demand for commercial capabilities in LEO by producing high-value products for terrestrial use. Made In Space first demonstrated the SLA printing technology found inside CMM through a series of parabolic flights funded through NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, in 2016.
Additional technical partners for the CMM mission include HRL Laboratories of Malibu, California, and Sierra Turbines of San Jose, California.
The successful CMM mission builds upon Redwire’s flight heritage with four other additive manufacturing facilities developed by the Made In Space team that have successfully flown and operated on the space station.
“This is an exciting milestone for space enabled manufacturing and signals the potential for new markets that could spur commercial activity in low Earth orbit,” said Tom Campbell, the President of Made In Space. “Building on our in-space manufacturing expertise and our partnership with NASA, Redwire is developing advanced manufacturing processes on orbit that could yield sustainable demand from terrestrial markets and creating capabilities that will allow humanity to sustainably live and work in space.”
“The Ceramic Manufacturing Module’s successful on-orbit operations is an important step towards full-scale manufacturing of materials products that can improve industrial machines that we use on Earth,” said Michael Snyder, CTO of Redwire. “The space manufacturing capabilities demonstrated by CMM have the potential to stimulate demand in low Earth orbit from terrestrial markets which will be a key driver for space industrialization.”
Additionally, Redwire subsidiary Made In Space (MIS) was awarded the Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal at the 2020 NASA Honor Awards Ceremony hosted virtually by NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The medal was awarded for the Made In Space team’s exceptional and pioneering success developing and operating in-space manufacturing facilities on the International Space Station (ISS) while furthering the commercialization of LEO.
Andrew Rush
This prestigious NASA medal is awarded to Government or non-Government individuals for exceptional technology contributions significantly contributing toward the achievement of the NASA mission. The medal was presented to Redwire COO Andrew Rush in recognition of the team’s exceptional efforts.
To date, Redwire’s flight heritage on the ISS includes five facilities, developed by MIS teams, that have pioneered in-space manufacturing and paved the way for manufacturing with specialized materials in orbit to benefit Earth.
MIS teams are currently developing three ISS pilot payloads, through a partnership with the ISS Research Integration Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, that aim to catalyze and scale demand for commercial capabilities in LEO by producing high-value products for terrestrial use. The facilities include the Ceramic Manufacturing Module (CMM), Industrial Crystallization Facility (ICF), and the Turbine Superalloy Casting Module (TSCM).
CMM, which launched in October 2020 on Northrop Grumman’s CRS-14 mission successfully demonstrated ceramic additive manufacturing in space for the first time in history, earlier this week. The facility is designed to provide proof-of-potential for single-piece ceramic turbine blisk (blade + disk) manufacturing in microgravity for terrestrial use.
The Made in Space ICF team.
The next manufacturing facility set to launch to the ISS is ICF—a commercial, in-space manufacturing device designed to provide proof-of-principle for diffusion-based crystallization methods to produce high quality crystals in microgravity relevant for terrestrial use.
The Made in Space TSCM team.
ICF will be followed by TSCM, which will investigate potential improvements in superalloy microstructure by heat treating in microgravity.
These advancements in space enabled manufacturing capabilities could signal new opportunities for LEO commercialization.
Made In Space is sending the first ceramic manufacturing facility in space to the ISS next week
Image Credits: European Space Agency (opens in a new window) / Flickr (opens in a new window) under a CC BY-SA 2.0 (opens in a new window) license.
In-space manufacturing company Made In Space is pushing the envelope on what can, well, be made in space with its next mission — which is set to launch aboard a Northrop Grumman International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission set for next Tuesday. Aboard that launch will be Made In Space’s Turbine Ceramic Manufacturing Module (aka CMM), a commercial ceramic turbine blisk manufacturing device that uses 3D printing technology to produce detailed parts that require a high degree of production accuracy.
A turbine blisk is a combo rotor disk/blade array that is used primarily in engines used in the aerospace industry. Making them involves using additive manufacturing to craft them as a single component, and the purpose of this mission is to provide a proof-of-concept about the viability of doing that in a microgravity environment. Gravity can actually introduce defects into ceramic blisks manufactured on Earth, because of the way that material can settle, leading to sedimentation, for instance. Producing them in microgravity could mean lower error rates overall, and a higher possible degree of precision for making finely detailed designs.
Made In Space to launch it’s latest AM technology to the ISS
Space bound 3D printer to test viability of producing high performance ceramic parts using micro-gravity environment.
(Photo credit: Made In Space)
Made In Space (MIS) announced it will launch its additive manufacturing Ceramic Manufacturing Module (CMM) to the International Space Station (ISS) on Sept. 29, as part of Northrop Grumman’s 14th commercial resupply mission aboard the Cygnus spacecraft.
CMM will demonstrate the viability of manufacturing with pre-ceramic resins – soft materials present before the manufacturing begins that become hardened during the process – in a stereolithography (SLA) environment. According to the company, manufacturing on-orbit in the microgravity environment could enable temperature-resistant, reinforced ceramic parts with better performance. Those improvements include higher strength and lower residual stress, due to a reduction in defects caused by gravity, such as sedimentation and composition gradients that occur in terrestrial manufacturing.
Stereolithography or Digital Light Processing (DLP) is a high-resolution 3D printing approach based on UV curing of liquid resins in a layer-by-layer fashion. For CMM, MIS will print an advanced ceramic matrix composite (CMC) material that consists of a pre-ceramic resin reinforced with ceramic particles. The microgravity environment on the ISS is considered especially beneficial for processing such particle suspensions as the settling of particles is mitigated.
Once the manufacturing device returns to Earth, the manufactured blisks are then heat-treated to create the final product of a Ceramic Matrix Composite (CMC). CMCs have the potential to perform at hundreds of degrees hotter than the best superalloys and can have a clear advantage over previously used metal components used in aircraft engines.
MIS is developing this technology for commercialization alongside technical partners HRL Laboratories of Malibu, California and Sierra Turbines of San Jose, California.
https://madeinspace.us
Flying high with 40X reliability: Sierra Turbines aims to move the small-engine industry forward
By Kip Hanson
Making gas microturbines more robust, 50% lighter, and with 10 times the energy efficiency using metal 3D printing from VELO3D
Will Hasting (left) of VELO3D and Roger Smith (right), CEO of Sierra Turbines.
Roger Smith is breaking the rules of manufacturing. The chief executive officer of San Jose, California-based Sierra Turbines Inc., he’s discarded the industry’s long-held belief that additive manufacturing (AM) is limited to prototyping and low-volume work. In fact, Smith plans to additively manufacture 95% or more of his microturbine components even when he reaches large-scale production.
Apple to aircraft
Smith doesn’t care that he’s discarding several other industry beliefs, among them the notion that overhauling microturbines every 40 to 50 hours is acceptable.
The VELO3D Sapphire metal printer
Smith is unhappy with much of the small-engine status quo. A microturbine has historically been a simplified version of its full-size counterpart; cost restrictions have always prohibited manufacturing complex features that would give microturbines improved performance. With a little radical thinking and a hefty dose of advanced technology, he’s prepared to change it.
One of the key pillars of this advanced technology in Smith’s arsenal is the metal AM system from manufacturer VELO3D, located just a few minutes south of Sierra Turbines in Campbell. Says Smith, “We opened the company in 2017, and within the first year or so had pretty much scoured the planet for a 3D-printing process to produce our parts. That’s when we learned about VELO3D. We were all quite surprised—and pleased—to discover they are just down the street from us. It makes our work together that much easier.”
The “we” in this story is Smith’s team of scientific and technical professionals. Some have gas turbine expertise; others are extremely knowledgeable in software and control systems (Smith himself spent 19 years with Apple before launching Sierra Turbines). All have worked in Fortune 100 product environments. Together they boast a combined 70 years of industry experience, with each team member sharing the same goal—to design and manufacture better solutions for the burgeoning microturbine market.
Microturbines are suitable for a variety of applications, Smith explains. They can be used to meet land-based power generation needs, where microturbine-based systems not much larger than a washing machine serve as auxiliary power units (APUs) in backup generators and other standby electrical-generation needs.
They are also of importance for unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. Where gas turbine engines weighing many thousands of pounds push commercial and military aircraft through the skies every day, microturbines perform a less dynamic, though just as important, task: powering the electric motors that keep UAVs aloft. They can also be used to charge the batteries that drive those motors, as range extenders, or in hybrid UAVs that alternate between batteries and motors.
The Aurelius Mk1 Project
Sierra Turbines named their microturbine “Aurelius Mk1,” drawing on that historical period when engines were named after Greek or Roman mythology. Inspired by the Rolls Royce Olympus engines that first powered the Concorde supersonic airliner, Aurelius also happens to be the name of Smith’s late father. Sierra Turbines intends to honor that namesake by challenging the status quo.
The time between overhaul (TBO) for most small turbine engines averages 40 to 50 hours. Smith intends to raise that value to 1000+ hours, on par with commercial aircraft. He also plans to reduce engine weight to a kilogram or less, cut noise, and improve fuel efficiency, all while making the turbines easier to manufacture. These are lofty goals, yet ones shared by practically everyone making microturbines. He’s confident that his team will succeed where others have failed, however, through a host of design improvements only made possible with advanced metal AM.
Smith sees his efforts as part of a bigger picture, work that will contribute towards a revitalization of the country’s manufacturing sector. “My thoughts are these,” he says. “If we as a country are to start building products in the U.S. again, we must develop better ways of designing and fabricating products. This includes less reliance on tooling, most of which has been shifted to China, but also an embrace of Industry 4.0 and other change-making technologies. Metal 3D printing is one of these change-makers. It’s far less wasteful than traditional manufacturing and presents endless opportunities for part consolidation, lightweighting, greater product efficiency…the list goes on.”
One example of this new approach to design efficiency is the Aurelius combustor. It’s the heart of any microturbine and the test case by which Smith would determine which providers were able to deliver on the promise of additive. The component contains hundreds of small, oddly shaped holes, delicate mesh-like webbing, dozens of internal cooling channels, and a series of thin, exceedingly tall walls. And where the initial design contained 61 discrete parts, that number fell to a consolidated “unicore” engine after Sierra Turbine's designers gave it an additive makeover with computational modeling software tools.
Key differentiators
It's this highly sophisticated design that Smith presented to various additive equipment manufacturers, challenging them to build the part from Hastelloy® X, a high-strength, low-creep metal that's favored by commercial-aircraft manufacturers. The heat-resistant superalloy is also vital to Smith's reliability and fuel-efficiency goals, as it will allow his engine to reach temperatures previously unattainable in microturbines. "The hotter you go in any gas turbine, the better the performance," he says.
Smith isn’t naming names, except to say that "everyone else failed" in their attempts to build the thin-walled, high-aspect-ratio combustor. “The team at VELO3D worked with us on the design, tweaking things to make it more manufacturable, but it was their Flow software that was perhaps the biggest enabler,” Smith says, “It contains a number of special tools that provide valuable feedback throughout the entire print-preparation process.
He noticed a range of hardware differentiators as well. “It was obvious to me early-on that the VELO3D platform offers a different approach to laser powder-bed fusion (LPBF)," he adds. “For starters, their non-contact recoater blade is especially well-suited to print thin-walled sections—in some areas, our walls are less than one millimeter thick, and these tended to break off on other 3D printers.”
Smith also notes VELO3D’s ability to eliminate supports on shallow overhangs. This attribute provides for internal features that would otherwise be impossible to produce, as well as the smooth surface finishes printed by the Sapphire metal AM system. Each of these reduces the need for secondary machining and other finishing processes, something the team at Sierra Turbines wishes to avoid wherever possible.
Finally, the system’s quality assurance software, Assure, documents all the critical sensor data that affect part quality and produces a comprehensive build report for traceability. Armed with data points concerning protrusions, oxygen level, filter life, and laser alignment, Sierra Turbines has confidence that the part built was indeed a good part. “This level of quality assurance is what will move the AM industry forward,” notes Smith.
Reducing the pain of traditional manufacturing
The cost and energy savings by the consolidation of 61 parts into one part cannot be overstated. Production and transport of different raw materials, manufacture of individual parts using different processes, shipping of individual parts, tedious assembly work, joints of dissimilar materials, reliance on extra seals or fasteners, and more: All of this waste is simply eliminated by the integration of many parts into one printed part which subsequently requires minimal post-processing. “3D printing eliminates a great deal of manufacturing pain,” Smith says.
Ready for takeoff
Smith is just getting started. Once the combustor has been thoroughly tested and benchmarked, he intends to pursue additional performance improvements. He's also planning to work on the microturbine's rotating components, an unorthodox move that many aerospace pundits would agree is beyond the pale. Here again, Smith is determined. “VELO3D believes that you can use additive for full-scale production, and so do I,” he says.
Nor is his decision solely a matter of lower cost, shorter lead-times, or abbreviated supply chains. By allowing Sierra Turbines to consolidate dozens upon dozens of components into a single 3D-printed piece, one with lower mass and greater mechanical integrity than the welded and assembled alternative, support-free printing technology is enabling this small company to meet its design goals. Smith fully expects to meet or exceed his TBO goal of 1000 hours, among other objectives.
“I believe that technology should be a servant to the design, not the other way around,” Smith says. “My design team is freed from the constraints of traditional manufacturing and even existing metal AM technologies such that they can focus purely on defining the geometry needed to maximize performance and differentiation. For future gas turbine development, we aim to leverage the power of additive manufacturing to integrate features such as an efficiency-boosting recuperator, printed-in sensors, and more novel insulating and cooling geometries.”
nTopology Raises $40 Million In Series C Funding For Its 3D Printing Software Platform
Jim Vinoski
Contributor
Manufacturing
The promises of 3D printing can’t be fully recognized with legacy manufacturing design technologies. That’s the driving principle behind New York City tech startup nTopology’s generative design software, nTop Platform. “Manufacturing has gone through the most profound shift in 100 years,” said nTopology’s cofounder and CEO Bradley Rothenberg. “We developed nTop as the first engineering software to maximize the 3D printing process.”
To help continue their rollout of the platform, which was launched in 2019, nTopology today announced its latest funding, a $40 million Series C round. Led by Insight Partners and joined by Grant Verstandig and the company’s existing venture partners Root, Canaan, DCVC and Haystack, the new round raises the firm’s total funding to $71 million. The company also announced that Josh Fredberg, Operating Partner at Insight Partners, is joining the nTopology Board of Directors.
The fresh capital will help the company get its design software into the hands of more engineers, to help expand the foothold it’s already established at firms such as Lockheed Martin LMT -0.1%-0.2%. “You have a totally different manufacturing process in 3D printing,” Rothenberg explained. “You’re creating the shape and the material at the same time. It gives new degrees of freedom and complexity, and you need a new method of design to take advantage of that. Old design technology is built around producing drawings. Ours is built on new modeling software, an implicit modeling engine specifically designed for mechanical engineering applications.”
nTop Platform and 3D printing enable designs not achievable with legacy manufacturing processes IMAGE COURTESY NTOPOLOGY
The advantages of that were demonstrated recently in nTopology’s work with Sierra Turbines, a manufacturer of microturbine engines used in applications such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The two companies partnered with Velo3D to showcase the benefits of generative design and 3D printing. nTop Platform was used in conjunction with Velo3D’s Sapphire metal 3D printer to produce a complete new design for the Sierra Turbines Aurelius Mk1 microturbine. “Velo3D allowed us to optimize the turbine core as one single part,” Rothenberg said. “It has no seals or gaskets, so we eliminated those potential failure points.”
3D printed parts with a complex lattice design from nTop Platform IMAGE COURTESY NTOPOLOGY
nTop Platform allowed the design team to model different materials virtually rather than building numerous prototypes. “The design process allows the study of using different materials,” said Rothenberg. “You can optimize your construction material before you produce your first part. And even during production, upgrading with a new material is like loading a software update – you just make a quick tweak and boom! It’s just like version control.”
That revolution in modeling is a key advantage for nTop Platform. “One thing that’s happening is the speed of innovation,” said Duann Scott, nTopology’s VP of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships. “Even using CAD systems, you’d have to design, simulate, then design again, and you might get 150 iterations done over two days. With nTop Platform, we can run 3,000 tests in an hour.”
The results of that application speak for themselves. The new design’s gas turbine core, now a single piece, replaces 61 individual parts in the old design. The design delivered tighter tolerances and an increased thrust-to-weight ratio. And Sierra projects much greater turbine reliability, with an estimated 40x increase in time between overhauls.
While aerospace and medical have been in the forefront of taking advantage of the 3D printing revolution, nTopology sees coming opportunities in automotive, consumer products and education, to name but a few additional potential markets. “There’s a platform shift happening,” said Rothenberg. “We’re moving from less sustainable to more sustainable across the board – for example, gas to electric cars. 3D printing enables that shift, and generative design enables 3D printing. If you want to see where the growth is happening, look at where metal 3D printing is and where it isn’t. It’s like the canary in the coal mine.”
Metal AM: Challenging the Paradigm
Manufacturing Engineering: VELO3D has trademarked the term “SupportFree.” What does this mean and what kind of cost savings or improved part quality can shops expect from using your technology?
This engine combustor from Sierra Turbines previously required 61 discrete components to manufacture, but thanks to SupportFree technology, can now be 3D-printed in a single operation.
By Will Hasting
Director of Aviation and Power Turbine Solutions,
Velo3D
Will Hasting: The industry standard for 3D printing metal surfaces [without supports] is 45 degrees, as measured from the horizontal plane. That’s what most printers are capable of achieving without supports. This means, however, that any features shallower than this require a support or series of supports to prevent curling and distortion. These [support] structures must then be removed post-build, adding to cost and lead-time, and possibly jeopardizing part quality.
By comparison, we can successfully print surfaces down to 10 degrees and, in some cases, actually 0 degrees, or completely horizontal. That’s a huge differentiator, especially for parts with complex internal features, where it’s difficult or even impossible to remove these supports. Sometimes the printing process is truly support-free, where the parts are free-floating in powder, and other times, it is support-less, which means it reduces the consideration of support structures for manufacturing.
ME: Similarly, does support-free printing open doors in terms of design freedom or ease the manufacturing process in any way?
Hasting: SupportFree reduces the natural tension between design and engineering. It enables designers to think and build without constraints, and gives engineers greater latitude to extract more performance from their products and systems. For example, we recently worked with Sierra Turbines here in San Jose on an engine combustor that previously required 61 discrete components to manufacture. Because we can print at extremely low angles, we can eliminate the supports that otherwise would have been required. The result is greater aerodynamic efficiency and less air leakage. You also have a more consistent, repeatable structure, with fine meshes and smooth lattice structures that provide better fuel flow to the combustion chamber. There’s no way this part could have been manufactured without SupportFree printing in its current iteration.
ME: Are there any downsides to this approach? Slower build speeds? Higher equipment or operating costs? More challenging build preparation?
Hasting: That’s an interesting question. For operating costs, we made a back-to-back comparison on an impeller printed with and without supports. With the latter, we used 14 percent less powder, had a 20 percent faster print time, and were left with 89 percent less surface area to machine.
And yet there’s more to it than the build. SupportFree not only means greater design freedom but also less engineering time. In fact, we just spoke with one of our machine shop customers, Duncan Machine Products in Oklahoma, who told us our machine is very intuitive, far more so than CNC machining. Our system is easier to use because we know the paradigms and obstacles that have historically prevented metal AM adoption.
ME: Support elimination is clearly essential for parts with large numbers of complex internal features, as evident from your success with heat exchanger and gas turbine manufacturers, but is it as relevant with simpler parts, where secondary finishing processes can easily remove these supports?
Hasting: We at VELO3D take pride in our ability to tackle the tough parts that others can’t, but that doesn’t mean we’re not competitive on simpler parts as well. The Sapphire system prints with greater consistency and higher yield rates while eliminating all sorts of issues and problems commonly encountered on 3D metal printers. Parts of all shapes and sizes are simply more printable.
ME: Most metal 3D printer manufacturers tout their in-process build monitoring and environmental control capabilities. What makes VELO3D’s technology different?
Hasting: We designed a system that’s engineered with far more sensors and provides more insight into the build process. The data is actionable and informative, versus accumulating terabytes of data without much usability. We also developed a software suite that knocks down obstacles that might keep us from printing what we need to print, whether it’s a problem with the material, the part geometry, or a hardware constraint. The Assure system gives our customers access to all the tools and data we used to develop the Sapphire 3D printer, providing insight into the build process. And while all 3D printers generate data, you have to look at how usable this data is to the technicians and engineers using the system.
ME: You recently introduced a large-format 3D metal printer, said to be the tallest such machine available. Was this simply a matter of increasing the height of the build chamber and adding Z-axis travel?
Hasting: The Sapphire 1MZ has a 1-m high build chamber and provides the same level of process control as the original Sapphire metal 3D printer. It’s receiving a lot of attention from rocket and defense manufacturers and those in the oil and gas industry since it gives them the capability to combine assemblies that previously required welding and fitting of multiple components. This will be the case with Knust-Godwin in Katy, Texas, which is looking forward to delivery of the first 1MZ later this year.
ME: The VELO3D website claims that your Flow software “unlocks parts not previously possible with additive manufacturing.” How so?
Hasting: We’ve already discussed part complexity, so let’s focus on scalability and repeatability. Complete software and hardware integration is one of the key aspects of our technology. If you used a PC back in the 1990s, you know that the hardware and software typically came from different manufacturers. The two would often fight, and the user had to trick the system to get everything working. That situation is similar to many of the 3D printers today, and it’s what impressed me most when I first came to VELO3D—everything is integrated. You can print a part today and six months from now send that same Flow file to a printer anywhere in the world. The results will be the same, regardless of part quantity, the machine vintage, and the serial number on the laser.
ME: Metal AM has taken off over the past 10 years. What will happen in the next decade?
Hasting: One thing is parts are still too expensive, and much of that is due to post-processing costs. VELO3D has already addressed this and will continue to push our technology farther to reduce support structures and also [increase] part quality in terms of first-time yield. But what is really holding metal AM back is confidence in the parts.
For instance, a company’s metal AM team might want to use additive to make a part, but the chief engineer won’t sign off on it. Some of that reluctance is because it’s a relatively new technology, but it’s also because manufacturers have been burned with the lack of process control in most metal AM systems. They lack confidence, and the only way to get it is through traceable process data, leading to better part quality and successful build experiences. Over the coming years, that’s what we will continue to provide.