In the traditional manufacturing process of large size parts, the assembly of final components or sub-components is an important step, which often requires a lot of time, equipment, manpower and quality control.
In traditional manufacturing way, welding and bolting is the main way of assembly, the usage of fasteners not only increases the weight of the product but also the assembly point will be a common fault point. If the connection point has the fault, it may lead to adverse risk or machine halt.
For these reasons, finding a innovative and effective way to eliminate or reduce assemblies can be beneficial in many industries. A key advantage of metal 3d printing is to provide companies and design engineers the ability to produce complex components, including integrated assemblies for integrated manufacturing.
Through structural optimization, engineers integrate the parts of the components together to form a complex single part structure, which can not be manufactured by traditional manufacturing ways, but only by metal 3d printing to achieve the integration.
As a result, the assembly of the component is no longer required, which reduces weight and eliminates the possibility of wear and tear, and lengthens the period of maintenance at the same time.
The reduced number of parts also makes it much easier for companies to iterate on new designs. This significantly reduces the time and costs of process development, with fewer parts means fewer process and steps, and less interdependence between parts and materials. As long as the metal 3d printing steps are well controlled, it may be easier to reach the goal, which means fewer unexpected failures due to the interaction of fasteners, welds, glues and other materials.
For example, the new structural design of Turboprop engine reduces the manufacturing complexity due to metal 3D printing. It reduces the 855 parts previously manufactured by traditional processes to 12 parts through structural optimization of metal 3D printing design. The reduction in the number of parts greatly improves production efficiency and reduces the weight of the engine and increased fuel efficiency, which shows the advantages of metal 3D printing for integrated manufacturing.
Welcome to contact Eplus3D for more cases and industrial AM solutions of integrated manufacturing.
