Last year,Siemens Energy在德国的数字工程和添加剂制造业中扮演项目经理的角色雷电竞充值(IDEA) project, supported by theFederal Ministry of Education and Research(BMBF).
The three-year collaborative venture was ultimately intended to enhance the serial production capabilities of laser-based powder bed fusion, increasing the technology’s productivity while cutting development and throughput times by 50%. Now, Siemens Energy has announced that the project has reached its next milestone, as the company has finally opened a test facility to pilot an additive manufacturing series production line.
The pilot production line
The prototype production line, which can be found at theSiemens gas turbine factoryin Berlin, was completed with the help of the BMBF’s ‘Line integration of Additive Manufacturing processes’ funding initiative. Its construction and subsequent operation mark an important step towards the industrialization of 3D printing in the country. The wider factory has previously been used by Siemens Energy to print some of its metal gas turbine components.
October 22 saw the inauguration of the production line with a virtual opening event, which included a ribbon-cutting ceremony conducted by Marcus Brücher, Vice President of Large Gas Turbines at Siemens Energy, and General Manager of the factory.
With the development and implementation phases out of the way, what follows is a validation process, whereby the project partners will determine how well the facility meets certain targets based on demonstration components printed on the production line. This second half of the IDEA project is expected to be completed in 2022.
The IDEA project partners
想法项目合作伙伴包括硬件和软件专家全态,BCT,Jenoptik,模块化, and西门子数字工业, and industrial 3D printer manufacturersEOS和TRUMPF.Liebherr,MBFZ toolcraft, andMTU Aero Enginesare also involved. The project receives additional support from theFraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology(ILT), theFraunhofer Institute for Production Technology(IPT), and theRWTH Aachen University.
The virtual opening event also included a moderated panel discussion with four of these project partners. Comprising the panel was Marie Langer of EOS, Markus Seibold of Siemens Energy, Karsten Heuser of Siemens AG, and Klaus Parey of TRUMPF.
A number of similar collaborative projects with European academic and industrial partners have been initiated in the past year alone. In July,21 partners from 8 European countries came together to undergo theMULTI-FUN project– a three-year initiative aimed at advancing multi-material metal additive manufacturing. The project is funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 innovation program and comprises two parts: the first involves improving the performance of 2020’s metal AM systems while the second will focus on enabling the multi-material fabrication of complex, large-scale 3D models.
2020年5月saw the launch of thePOLYLINE project, a lighthouse project that brought together 15 industrial and research partners from across Germany to develop a digitalized AM production line. Much like the IDEA project, POLYLINE’s automated production line will focus on 3D printing serial polymer parts for the automotive sector.
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特色图片显示了马库斯·布鲁彻（MarcusBrücher）切割缎带。通过西门子的照片。
