Ford engineers monitor a build project on the Stratasys Infinite-build 3D printer. By turning the Z-axis 90º, the machine can build parts of any length.
Photo: Ford Motor Co.
Despite recent advances, additive manufacturing (AM) technologies remain too slow for mass-production automotive manufacturing. However, companies use AM extensively in design and engineering, and experts say the technology could revolutionize production by increasing efficiencies for traditional manufacturing methods.
“For Ford, producing the volume of parts that we need to support vehicles, this is one of the bigger areas that will impact the manufacturing world – supporting traditional manufacturing with additive technology,” says Harold Sears, Ford’s additive manufacturing technical expert, effectively the company’s in-house consultant for design and manufacturing engineers.
For a company that considers AM technology too slow for automotive production volumes, Ford 3D prints many parts each year. The automaker has five additive factories worldwide, producing about 250,000 components per year – just don’t expect to see any of those on new cars or trucks.
From the tires to the roof, designers and engineers print versions of nearly every component on every car at some point in the product-development process.
“It’s really enabling engineers to do design iterations quickly. You can get a part in hours or days instead of weeks or months with traditional methods,” Sears says. “Traditionally, you would make one test, go back and modify the tooling, make another part, and so on. Today, designers are submitting requests for having multiple versions of a part built at the same time. They can do their testing in parallel.”
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From the July 2017 issue of Today’s Motor Vehicles.