JULY/AUGUST 2019 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
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there was little time to deliver
a suitable solution.
The IMRG initially tried to
use an aluminium piece with
a small rubber O-ring, but
that didn’t solve the problem
sufficiently. In fact, it caused
the entire project to slow
down which, given the limited
time available to conclude the
project, wasn’t an option.
The team then came up with
a new design: a small disc with a
cut channel around the outside
to fit an O-ring. The part had
relatively strict tolerance
requirements; if the cut was
too big and the ring sank into
the side of the part, it wouldn’t
seal on the O-ring, but the
plastic. The acceptable range of
tolerance was half the thickness
of the O-ring – somewhere in
the region of half a millimetre.
The variety of parts also
created manufacturing
complications. The team quickly
established that they needed
multiple variations because
the holes the engineers were
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Around 500
highly varied
caps were
needed in
under two weeks
changed things, rather than sending out the
first design to a service company, only for them
to send all 500 of them back within a couple of
weeks when they realised a change was required.
How 3D printing supports hundreds
of engineers at AMRC
Since the installation of Formlabs’ 3D printers in
a station at the AMRC, additive manufacturing
has supported several research projects across
the site. This ranges from 3D printed robot
gripper brackets to custom printed rollers for
filament winding, as well as the production of
temperature sensor brackets.
The printers have been fundamental to some
of the most innovative projects being carried out
at the AMRC. As Stefan Hollaender, managing
director for the EU at Formlabs comments:
“Having additive manufacturing units on-site
enables the AMRC’s engineers to make iterations
through design quickly. Furthermore, they can
often get through two or three designs in one day
because the speed and low cost of production. This
reduces turnaround time on custom components
from weeks to hours, and allows product release
dates to be brought forward by months.”
Hollaender continues: “The initial installation
of 3D printers does not need to be on a mass
scale. The flexibility of additive manufacturing
suits the Form 2, can be easily replicated into
multiple different stations as demand increases.
Batch-quantity additive manufacturing is also
possible through multi-platform printers.”
The AMRC sees 3D printing as a catalyst
for efficiency, giving its staff from production
engineers to machinists the tools to tighten
supply chains, improve production, and get to
market faster – this saves hundreds of thousands
of pounds, as well as numerous production hours,
thereby helping the AMRC in its efforts to bring
perfection to advanced manufacturing.
drilling were different sizes,
which meant they required
different hole covers. From a
virtual design point of view, it
doesn’t take long to just change
one dimension, but to injection
mould the parts, you’d need a
new mould for each one.
3D printing 500 protective
caps in two days
The project required about
500 of these small caps in
the space of ten days, which
involved highly accurate and
fast manufacturing options.
While at first, the IMRG team
requested quotes from three
external printing companies,
the offers were excessive
considering the perceived value
of the parts we were going to
attribute to the project.
This led to the team
deciding on 3D printing as it
provided the fastest and most
intuitive option. They spoke
to the Design and Prototyping
Group at the AMRC and asked
if they could get anything
manufactured in-house. Less
than 24 hours later, half of
the protective caps were
manufactured and printed using
Formlabs’ Form 2 SLA. In fact,
the Design and Prototyping
Group managed to get all the
components manufactured
within just two days.
This meant that the
engineers could deploy the
parts sooner and allowed them
to turn their attention to other
urgent projects.
As the parts were 3D printed,
geometry was included in
each part so that the IMRG
were also able to print a tool
within the printed process.
This allowed them to install
the caps quickly and easily. The
feedback the engineers got from
the operators installing them
was fantastic. The majority of
the parts performed exactly
as intended and none of them
broke during operation.
Besides the quick turnaround
time and low cost, another key
benefit of access to in-house 3D
printing was flexibility. If the
design hadn’t worked out when
tested, the team could have
quickly fed that information
back into the design loop and
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