That's totally untrue. You clearly do not have any experience designing, building, manufacturing, testing, and certifying either cast metal or PBF parts. BTW, PBF is powerbed fusion and it is how you make 3D printed metal parts. FDM is a plastic manufacturing process and has nothing at all to do with replacing metal castings.
For a certain aircraft part that I designed, that measured approximately 16"x8"x10", if you needed up to 12 of them it was cheapest to 3D print them using powerbed fusion from AlSi10Mg, but with a 25% weight penalty due to the lower mechanical properties of 3D printed aluminum compared to cast. If you needed between 12 and 50 of them, it was cheapest to use 3D printing to make a wax preform then use the preform to make a traditional metal investment casting from A356. For more than 50 of them, it was cheapest to invest in permanent closed die tooling.
Other than for prototyping and extremely low volume production, additive has been a total flop for real-world manufacturing, and has not at all lived up to any of it's lofty promises.
I wrote FDM instead of additive manufacturing. I'm referring to is actually in SLS (selective laser sintering) space (which is what you refer as PBF?)
What I'm seeing is that companies like Formlabs (plastics) and divergent (metal) are changing the game and you have car parts to car engines to rocket engines being 3d printed.
See my other comment above for more links, but things seem to be changing fast in manufacturing.
Edit:
I think this quote sums the point though:
“With the increased throughput and decreased costs, Fuse X1 has completely changed our perspective on what kinds of projects our lab can support versus what we would have traditionally moved to an injection mold.”
Cody Jepsen, Engineering Technician, Additive Manufacturing at Tesla Giga NV
Do you see that changing as parts are designed for additive manufacturing? Things that basically cannot be made another way, but have strength, weight, and even functional benefits over a traditionally made part?
I’m thinking of say cooling channels built into walls of rocket combustion chambers, or car brake/axle assemblies, and some of the „organic“ designs that are lighter and stronger than a cast/machined part.
Comments
That's totally untrue. You clearly do not have any experience designing, building, manufacturing, testing, and certifying either cast metal or PBF parts. BTW, PBF is powerbed fusion and it is how you make 3D printed metal parts. FDM is a plastic manufacturing process and has nothing at all to do with replacing metal castings.
For a certain aircraft part that I designed, that measured approximately 16"x8"x10", if you needed up to 12 of them it was cheapest to 3D print them using powerbed fusion from AlSi10Mg, but with a 25% weight penalty due to the lower mechanical properties of 3D printed aluminum compared to cast. If you needed between 12 and 50 of them, it was cheapest to use 3D printing to make a wax preform then use the preform to make a traditional metal investment casting from A356. For more than 50 of them, it was cheapest to invest in permanent closed die tooling.
Other than for prototyping and extremely low volume production, additive has been a total flop for real-world manufacturing, and has not at all lived up to any of it's lofty promises.
I wrote FDM instead of additive manufacturing. I'm referring to is actually in SLS (selective laser sintering) space (which is what you refer as PBF?)
What I'm seeing is that companies like Formlabs (plastics) and divergent (metal) are changing the game and you have car parts to car engines to rocket engines being 3d printed.
See my other comment above for more links, but things seem to be changing fast in manufacturing.
Edit:
I think this quote sums the point though:
“With the increased throughput and decreased costs, Fuse X1 has completely changed our perspective on what kinds of projects our lab can support versus what we would have traditionally moved to an injection mold.” Cody Jepsen, Engineering Technician, Additive Manufacturing at Tesla Giga NV
Do you see that changing as parts are designed for additive manufacturing? Things that basically cannot be made another way, but have strength, weight, and even functional benefits over a traditionally made part?
I’m thinking of say cooling channels built into walls of rocket combustion chambers, or car brake/axle assemblies, and some of the „organic“ designs that are lighter and stronger than a cast/machined part.