The aerospace business has been a key adopter of metallic additive manufacturing know-how and an vital driver of its evolution in recent times. On the identical time, the business has additionally been confronted with sure challenges related to additive manufacturing, together with bottlenecks like handbook post-processing. Happily, with advances in automated post-processing options, equivalent to extremely automated methods from German depowdering specialist Solukon, aerospace producers are overcoming these hurdles and streamlining their AM operations.
Such has been the case at Sòphia Excessive Tech, an aerospace firm based mostly out of Vesuviana, Italy that focuses on the design and manufacturing of 3D printed and CNC machined metallic elements. Sòphia Excessive Tech makes a spread of high-performance aerospace assemblies and components, together with propulsion elements, satellite tv for pc thrusters, gas tanks, and first and secondary constructions for missiles and launchers, all whereas leveraging some great benefits of metallic AM, like design consolidation, complicated geometries and lightweighting.
In terms of manufacturing these aerospace elements, which regularly combine inside cooling channels and different complicated geometries, the effectiveness of post-processing steps like depowdering is important to the success of the ultimate half. Handbook depowdering processes, equivalent to vacuuming, hammering and blowing compressed air, are each time-consuming and usually are not assured to take away all powder, which might result in failed prints and questions of safety. Automated and thorough depowdering options have thus been a precedence for aerospace firms like Sòphia Excessive Tech.
Depowdering a thrust combustion chamber
For example the influence of integrating automated depowdering, one doesn’t should look additional than Sòphia Excessive Tech’s use of Solukon’s SFM-AT350 to depowder a thrust combustion chamber. The half, a monolithic regeneratively cooled thrust chamber meeting to be used in a liquid rocket engine, was 3D printed on a TRUMPF TruPrint 3000 LPBF system from Inconel 718.
Sometimes, thrust chamber assemblies are created from an array of various elements, together with the injector, major combustion chamber and nozzle, that are assembled utilizing bolts of welding. By turning to metallic AM, Sòphia engineers efficiently streamlined the manufacturing course of for the liquid rocket engine system by consolidating all these elements right into a single design. Not solely has this strategy simplified the manufacturing and meeting course of, it has additionally resulted in a extra light-weight thrust combustion chamber.
From a post-processing perspective, consolidating components and integrating inside channels for optimum cooling presents sure challenges. On this case, the thrust combustion chamber included 500 mm of inside channels with rectangular sections measuring 1 mm in top, which might be troublesome to take away free powder from utilizing handbook methods.
Sòphia Excessive Tech subsequently opted to make use of Solukon’s automated depowdering resolution for medium-sized components, the SFM-AT350. This technique, able to processing components as heavy as 100 kg, removes powder systematically utilizing a extremely automated and secure course of. Solukon describes how the depowdering course of begins: “After the 3D printing by SLM course of, the Solukon system removes the powder effectively, whereas the half is securely held in place on the construct plate. The system operates inside an inert setting to make sure security: the optimized chamber quickly fills with protecting fuel, enabling the depowdering course of to start.”
As soon as the inert setting has been established, the SFM-AT350 makes use of pneumatic excitation and managed actions (with 250 levels of rotation alongside the horizontal axis and a rotatable turntable) to dislodge and take away free powder. Sòphia’s Solukon {hardware} additionally integrates a high-frequency knocker (an elective accent), which loosens any clumps of powder that will have shaped in slender channels.
Notably, the sequence of movement is decided by SPR-Pathfinder, an clever software program software developed by Solukon that generates an optimum movement sample based mostly on the half’s CAD design. SPR-Pathfinder may even be used early on within the half design course of: customers can add the CAD mannequin and simulate the cleansing operation to make sure that powder could be totally faraway from the geometry. The calculated rotations and excitation are thus extremely efficient at eradicating powder from even probably the most complicated geometries, as was the case with the aerospace thrust combustion chamber.
In complete, the SFM-AT350 was in a position to take away all free powder from the consolidated aerospace element in a 40-minute cycle—a second cleansing cycle was carried out for validation functions—and with little operator intervention. On prime of that, the automated, self-contained course of enhances the protection of the manufacturing unit ground, by minimizing operator publicity to dangerous metallic powders. In actual fact, the metallic powder cleaned from the half may also be recovered for recycling.
“The automated system has drastically improved our workflow,” stated Dr. Giovanni Caferra, a lead operator at Sòphia Excessive Tech. “It’s environment friendly, secure and the outcomes are all the time constant, which is one thing we couldn‘t obtain manually. With SPR-Pathfinder we don’t even have to do any programming for the machine anymore. It’s a really easy depowdering workflow with a dependable cleansing high quality.”
In the end, Solukon’s automated depowdering resolution ensured that the thrust chamber meeting was clear from any powder residue earlier than it superior to CNC machining, whereas additionally minimizing depowdering time and labor necessities.
Along with the SFM-AT350, Solukon has a rising portfolio of {hardware} options to handle the varied wants of AM customers, together with the massive SFM-AT1500-S, able to processing metallic components weighing as much as 2100 kg; and the SFM-AT350-E, which makes use of ultrasonic excitation to loosen and take away powder in a extremely environment friendly manner from metallic 3D printed geometries, notably helpful for these with delicate options and inside channels. If you wish to get in contact with the Solukon group click on right here or go to the official web site.
This text was printed in collaboration with Solukon.
