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Airtech is increasing its additive manufacturing portfolio with two strategic strikes aimed toward transitioning applications from early prototyping to full-scale manufacturing. The corporate is introducing 5 Dahltram® pellet grades for useful, end-use elements in large-format additive manufacturing (LFAM) and is formally launching the Kimya® by Airtech filament line for fused filament fabrication on each benchtop and industrial platforms. The mixed providing is designed to allow engineering groups to standardize on a single provider throughout pellets and filaments, simplify qualification, and improve confidence within the efficiency of printed elements in service.
Gregory Haye, Director of Additive Manufacturing at Airtech.
Gregory Haye, Director of Additive Manufacturing at Airtech, framed the replace round a shift in buyer necessities as additive strikes into manufacturing environments. “The market is maturing, and producers at the moment are printing elements which might be going into actual environments, not simply fashions or prototypes,” mentioned Haye. “We’re targeted on supplies that carry out predictably, are simpler to qualify, and provides clients extra selection, together with sustainable and cost-effective alternate options the place they match.” Airtech is exhibiting the portfolio at Formnext in Frankfurt, the place the brand new pellets, Kimya by Airtech filaments, and printed demonstrators are on show in Corridor 12.1, Sales space C78.
LFAM pellets for application-driven efficiency
On the heart of the LFAM growth are 5 new Dahltram pellet grades, every tuned for particular sensible engineering targets. These embody warmth resistance close to energy and course of tools, flexibility for compliant options, mechanical energy for load-bearing buildings, and a sturdy visible end for housings and customer-facing elements. “These supplies are very application-driven,” Haye mentioned. “We’re giving engineers and designers extra selection to allow them to choose the proper steadiness of energy, temperature efficiency, sustainability, and aesthetics.”
The brand new Dahltram pellet grades.
Giant-format extrusion introduces variables—excessive bead mass, steep thermal gradients, and interlayer bonding calls for—that may compromise throughput if a polymer just isn’t formulated for deposition stability. Airtech’s growth path for the brand new grades prioritizes dependable bead laydown and constant crystallization alongside in-service properties, to cut back tuning cycles and scrap on gantry and robotic methods. The supplies goal tooling and structural purposes the place near-net-shape printing compresses lead occasions and secondary machining, together with composite fixtures that tolerate autoclave publicity, protecting guards and covers uncovered to ultraviolet mild, and transport elements that require flame retardancy and dimensional management.
Course of documentation is positioned as a part of the product. Airtech is aligning datasheets, beneficial print home windows, and testing throughout its websites to assist clients lock in parameters and switch them between machines, shifts, and vegetation. Sustainability is addressed by means of managed use of recycled content material the place it doesn’t compromise efficiency, validation of recycled streams by means of mechanical testing and melt-flow evaluation, and rising closed-loop pathways to get well purge and scrap from buyer websites for reprocessing.
Airtech’s Print-Tech companies complement the pellets by supporting large-format and robotic multi-axis methods able to elements as much as 12 meters in size. That functionality permits groups to refine bead orientation, thermal administration, and toolpaths for outsized instruments and buildings, with classes feeding again into supplies steerage to slim the hole between catalog specs and manufacturing unit conduct.
Kimya by Airtech, from benchtop to industrial scaling
Operating alongside Dahltram, the Kimya by Airtech filament line affords a mirrored set of decisions throughout recycled and economical supplies, engineering polymers, and extremely polymers for demanding environments. The intent is continuity: design validation on a small printer can progress to LFAM manufacturing with out shifting to unrelated chemistries. “Many purchasers now run each pellet and filament methods side-by-side,” Haye mentioned. “Having constant supplies throughout these platforms simplifies qualification and will increase confidence within the elements produced.”
Airtech is preserving established Kimya chemistries whereas bringing them beneath its course of controls, together with soften filtration to take away contaminants, moisture administration for hygroscopic polymers, and post-extrusion conditioning to restrict residual stress and dimensional drift. The vary consists of fiber-reinforced grades for enhanced stiffness and dimensional stability, in addition to ESD-safe and flame-retardant variants appropriate for electronics and transportation. Moreover, it options clear and versatile formulations for machine guards and seals, and autoclave-compatible polymers for composite tooling. UV-stabilized choices assist outside tools and infrastructure the place colour and properties should stand up to the take a look at of time.
Demonstrations at Formnext spotlight how designs transition from filament prototypes to pellet-printed, full-scale elements using chemistries with matched mechanical properties. Airtech is showcasing printed elements developed in collaboration with machine, automation, and tooling companions to mirror actual manufacturing circumstances, fairly than idea items. This underscores the interaction amongst materials choice, bead orientation, and post-processing in assembly efficiency and compliance targets.
Licensed manufacturing in a unified pipeline
The launch builds on an integration effort that brings Kimya’s filament belongings—formulations, mental property, and manufacturing tools—into Airtech’s supplies operation. These belongings are being transferred to the corporate’s headquarters in Differdange, Luxembourg, which has been retooled for traceable, high-volume output beneath shared high quality protocols with Airtech’s U.S. facility in Springfield, Tennessee. The transatlantic community is organized round unified documentation, change management, and course of monitoring so a filament or pellet certified in a single area behaves persistently when sourced from the opposite.
Product growth is aligned to take care of mechanical compatibility between chosen filaments and their pellet counterparts, decreasing friction when applications scale from small-format prints to large-format manufacturing. Whereas course of settings differ between codecs, constant base chemistries and documented course of home windows present steady beginning factors for qualification beneath high quality administration methods. Airtech’s method emphasizes repeatability, certification, and provide safety, positioning the mixed Dahltram pellets and Kimya by Airtech filaments as a single-supplier route from design validation to serial output.
