3D PRINTING & ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING INTELLIGENCE

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VOLUME 29 ISSUE 5
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THIS IS AM 2.0
Desktop Metal talks EnvisionTEC, acquisitions
and additive’s next level.

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FROM THE EDITOR
LAURA GRIFFITHS
The wait
is over
As I’m writing this Editor’s Letter, it’s
around 10pm here in the UK which
means the doors to a successful
RAPID + TCT 2021 have just closed
in Chicago. It has been strange
watching this year’s event unfold
from afar. I can still remember my
first year at TCT, receiving a Skype
message late one evening from
our then Editor Jim asking me if I
fancied a trip to California on short
notice. Two weeks later I was in
Long Beach attending my first
RAPID event and I haven’t missed
one since.
Rather than rushing from booth
to booth, comparing step counts
and cramming in coffee whenever
possible, we’ve mostly taken in this
year’s event via social media, living
vicariously through photos posted
to LinkedIn by our colleagues and
friends in the U.S. of familiar, smiling
faces, happy to be reconnecting
again after almost two years apart.
Despite a serious bout of FOMO, it
has been wonderful to see.
Luckily, the timing of this letter
means we’re now less than two
weeks away from TCT 3Sixty
(perhaps you’re even reading this
mag on the show floor), so we don’t
have to wait too long to get in on
the action ourselves.
It feels like an eternity since we
first decided to reimagine our UK
event with a new mission to deliver
a full 360-degree view of the AM
industry. After two rescheduled
dates, changing travel restrictions
and all the usual fun stuff that
comes with the territory of being an
event organiser, I’m excited to see
this vision finally realised. Though I
from the editor
still don’t think it will feel real until the
last corner of purple carpet is rolled
on build day.
This event will also be my first as
TCT Head of Content so when we’re
not hosting panels or wrapping
our heads around what’s new on
the show floor, our Senior Content
Producer Sam Davies and I will be
taking the opportunity to get your
feedback on what you’d like to
see more or less of (it’s okay, we
can take it) from TCT Magazine.
Hopefully we’ve got it right over
the following pages through our
conversations with Deutsche Bahn
(Page 12), Wabtec (Page 15) and
General Motors (Page 17) on the
use of AM in rail and automotive
sectors; questioning the experts on
AM’s green credentials (page 21);
and exploring the use of 3D printing
in consumer products (Shoehorning
Lara Croft into TCT may be my
greatest achievement yet).
Like many of you, I am so looking
forward to returning to events
safely and encourage you to go
at your own pace. Seeing old and
new faces, getting hands on with
the technologies we’ve spent the
last 18 months writing words about
but are yet to see in-person, and
finally getting to watch a keynote
presentation with a real-life human in
front of me instead of a laptop. And
don’t forget, your free TCT 3Sixty
badge will also grant you access to
three neighbouring industry events;
Interplas UK, Med-Tech Innovation
Expo and PPMA.
So, let’s get back to it!
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 05
3D PRINTING & ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING INTELLIGENCE

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 ISSUE 5
VOLUME 29
COVER STORY 21
8
Sustainability
8
8. THIS IS AM 2.0
Desktop Metal details
the significance of its 21. HOW GREEN IS AM?
multiple acquisitions as it Laura asks a number of industry experts
looks to facilitate its AM for their thoughts on how sustainable THROUGH
2.0 vision. additive manufacturing really is. 43 THE DOORS
27. MINDFUL MANUFACTURING
Stratasys’ Rosa Coblens discusses 43. BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
11 Auto & rail
her new role as the company’s VP of
Sustainability.
EOS takes us behind the scenes at its
Maisach assembly facility.

11. THE FUNDAMENTALS 29. SOLUTIONS BY DESIGN

Hyperganic CEO Lin Kayser reinforces
47
Kevin Baughey, Segment Leader,
Transportation and Motorsports at 3D his belief that the key to addressing EXECUTIVE
Systems, on "advancing the science" in climate change lies in design
innovation.
INTERVIEW
automotive.
47. NEW METAL
12. THE INSIDE TRACK 6K Additive President Frank Roberts
Stefanie Brickwede of Deutsche Bahn PROFESSIONAL 31 discusses materials, sustainability and
& Mobility goes Additive discusses 3D
printing’s place in the rail industry. AM production in our latest exec Q&A.

31. SMALL-FORMAT, BIG

15. BIG BRAKE
POTENTIAL
Head of Content Laura Griffiths talks to
Wabtec about the additive manufacture
Sam talks to the vendors and users
of small-format SLS to understand the
50 Expert
of a brake panel.
opportunities and limitations of the Column
17. TOOLING UP technology. 50. REMEMBER THE MAGIC
Senior Content Producer Sam Davies AND YOUR MEASUREMENTS
speaks to GM’s Malini Dusey about the
CONSUMER ARKE Ltd consultant Robin Dallen
automotive firm’s application of AM.
35 PRODUCTS
explains why they still feel the magic
of AM after more than a decade in
the industry.
35 35. REINVENTING CASUAL
Voxel8 & Hush Puppies discuss their
3D printed footwear product efforts.

38. CRAFTING LARA CROFT

Laura talks to a special effects and
prop company behind the latest Lara
Croft collectable that leans on 3D
printing.

41. THE NEXE WORLD

Sam talks to a tech firm who has used
38 3D printing to develop compostable
coffee pod products.
 THIS IS AM
W
hen Desktop Metal was
featured on the cover of this
very magazine last year and
declared “bases loaded”,
not even a global pandemic could curb the
additive manufacturing (AM) company’s
ambition.
First came the installations of its newly
introduced Shop System, then a public listing
on the New York Stock Exchange in a deal
with Trine Acquisition Corp, and shortly after,
the first of a series of acquisitions. In January,
Desktop Metal brought EnvisionTEC into the
fold in a milestone $300 million acquisition,
and with it, nearly 20 years of experience
in polymer AM as the originator of DLP
technology. For those looking on, the foray
into polymers may have seemed surprising,
but if you ask Desktop Metal CEO and co-
founder Ric Fulop, opportunities outside of
metal have always been clear.
“I've always believed there's a huge
opportunity in composites and polymers,”
Fulop told TCT. “We're in this segment of
additive manufacturing that’s growing very
fast and it's not tooling or prototyping - that's
what's been done yesterday. It’s now all about
mass production, competing with conventional
manufacturing and changing the way people
make things.”
SHOWN:
HEARING AIDS 3D PRINTED AT
SCALE WITH ENVISIONTEC'S
DLP TECHNOLOGY
08 / www.tctmagazine.com / 29.5
Fulop and team have labelled this new era of
manufacturing “Additive Manufacturing 2.0”,
the next generation in 3D printing that’s about
leveraging the power of AM at scale for mass
production. Shattering the belief that AM only
works for specialised, low volume applications,
AM 2.0 promises to innovate on product,
process and materials. Al Siblani, CEO of
EnvisionTEC, is very much on the same page.
“This is really what AM 2.0 is all about,”
Siblani shared with TCT, “the future of additive
manufacturing that would allow us to disrupt
traditional manufacturing.”
THE RIGHT CHEMISTRY
While both CEOs confirm now is the time for
AM 2.0 with polymers, Siblani might argue that
EnvisionTEC has been ready for some time.
Though seemingly quieter than other DLP-
based companies that have emerged in more
recent years, EnvisionTEC is the original pioneer
of DLP and has been championing the mass
production of products like custom hearing aids
and eyewear, and in the dental market where
the company already has over 1,000 customers
using its printers and 60+ validated resins day
in and day out. Last year alone, the company
produced over 10 million end-use parts including
millions of NP swabs for COVID-19 test kits. The
catalyst, both CEOs believe, to unlocking this
5ABOVE:
ENVISIONTEC XTREME
AM 2.0 vision is materials. 8K PRINTER
SHOWN:
PARTS PRINTED ON
DESKTOP METAL'S BINDER
JET SHOP SYSTEM

2.0 Desktop Metal talks EnvisionTEC,
acquisitions and additive’s next level.
“It’s now
all about
mass
production”
“We needed a new backbone
chemistry,” Siblani elaborated.
“We really needed chemistry that
would deliver on the promise
of replacing injection moulded
parts. That means that we needed
photopolymer chemistry based on
long-chain polymer molecules -
because we know that long chain
molecules deliver stronger and
more stable parts.”
These long-chain polymers have
been enabled by EnvisionTEC’s
patented array technology, featured
in its large-format Xtreme 8K
printer, which affords greater power
to quickly turn liquid molecules
into an isotropic solid part. Siblani
also credits the influence of large
material and chemical companies
like BASF and Sartomer on
the AM industry and points to
another recent Desktop Metal
acquisition, elastomer company
Adaptive 3D, for opening up
“amazing mechanical properties”
in photopolymers. Meanwhile,
Fulop says materials were also a
large part of EnvisionTEC’s appeal,
noting the company’s vertically
integrated approach to resins and
“incredible chemistry”.
These materials, Desktop Metal
says, are broadening the scope
for killer applications for AM 2.0.
In addition to scenarios where AM
outruns injection moulding, such
as medical devices, electronic
enclosures and personalised
insoles characterised by their low
volumes, complex geometries
and mass customisation,
opportunities are also arising in
flight-certified components and
Formula 1 wind tunnel testing,
amongst many other areas where
greater material properties have
afforded greater applications.
Adaptive3D’s ETR90 (Elastic
ToughRubber) White resin, for
example, is enabling applications
in automotive interiors on
EnvisionTEC’s Xtreme 8K platform,
and the team is also quietly
working on another emerging
market, leveraging photopolymer
material enhancements for the next
generation of foam and cushioning
products.
THE NEXT FRONTIER
Reflecting on EnvisionTEC’s
journey over the last two decades
and the growth of the DLP market,
Siblani concludes: “When we
developed [that] technology in the
3D printing space, I remember that
nobody actually thought that it
would be what it is today.”
He comments on the recent swell
of interest in DLP-based technology
from some of the industry’s
major players as validation that
a technology the company has
spent the last 20 years perfecting,
amassing 136 patents in the
process, was the right one to
back in the race towards mass
production of end-use parts.
“I believe that we're going to lead
this space and our ability to deliver
production-ready DLP systems that
deliver on the promise, finally, of
taking 3D printing from prototyping
to mass production, which is really
what AM 2.0 is all about.”
But polymers are just one part of
Desktop Metal’s growth strategy,
which revolves around the three
central pillars of printers, materials,
and parts, and the integration of
EnvisionTEC is just one of the bold
moves the company has taken to
support that vision. While Desktop
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 09
COVER STORY
Metal has continued to push hard
on R&D internally by bringing more
tweaks and materials to its own
metal and composite platforms –
most recently the addition of 316L
stainless steel and dental-focused
chrome cobalt material on its
popular binder jet Shop System
and also 316L and 4140 on the
Production System – the company
has sought inorganic opportunities
to grow with the acquisition of
multi-material 3D printing firm
Aerosint and the Phonograft
platform enabled through
Beacon Bio, the latter of which
came from its Desktop Health
business line that's dedicated
to the dental, orthodontic and
otolaryngology markets. And,
shortly before this issue went to
press, the company announced
a definitive agreement to acquire
binder jet leader ExOne and 3D
printed hydraulics manufacturer
Aidro, both AM pioneers in their
own right. There was also the
launch of its new Forust process
focused on delivering sustainable
3D printing with upcycled wood
waste. These expansions mean
Desktop Metal now has more than
225 qualified materials across
metals, composites, polymers,
elastomers, ceramics, wood, sand
and biocompatible materials.
With this breadth of technology
now under one roof, when asked
how the company will remain
focused, Fulop confidently states:
“You could ask the same question of
a company like Amazon, which has
grown very fast and they're able to
succeed. We keep the team small,
give people high accountability and
push the decision making to the
edges. We bring in great people and
give them all the tools they need
to succeed, and then we also have
good managers. That is how we are
able to scale.”
If last year was “bases loaded”, this
year they’re hitting a grand slam.
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THE
FUNDAMENTALS
T
he feats of additive
manufacturing (AM) in the
automotive industry are well-
documented. From Formula 1
parts to tooling for mass production lines,
metals to polymers, track to off-track, there
isn’t a pocket of the industry that isn’t using
it in some way.
So when AM pioneer 3D Systems set out
its roadmap following the induction of CEO
Jeff Graves last year, it came as no surprise
that the company selected transportation
and motorsports as the focus of one of its
newly established industrial teams.
“Transportation and motorsports has
been a big piece of 3D Systems from
its inception,” Kevin Baughey, Segment
Leader, Transportation and Motorsports
at 3D Systems, told TCT. “We talked to our
Applications Engineers and I was really
taken aback by the expertise that they had
in sitting in with the companies and teams
within the segment.”
From those initial conversations, breaking
down current industry applications and
challenges, two key areas emerged. One
was productivity and efficiency within
existing use cases. The other was around
“advancing the science.”
“The folks that we were looking at in those
areas were really looking at the fundamental
science and engineering to solve problems,”
Baughey explained. “That's pretty typical
in Formula One because they're on that
advanced edge but we're also seeing [it] in
the consumer side, [..] given the prevalence
of EV and hybrid and all the advanced
propulsion systems that are coming into the
market.”

SHOWN:
METAL STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS 3D PRINTED IN
CERTIFIED SCALMALLOY ON A 3D SYSTEMS DMP FLEX 350
WORDS: LAURA GRIFFITHS
In metals, Baughey points to
thermodynamic and fluid management
applications where the design freedoms
afforded by AM are allowing components
like heat exchangers and hydraulic
accumulators to be packaged more
efficiently. There are also metal structural
applications where lightweighting and
conserving mass are typically the goal. But,
as Baughey explains, the reasons behind
that are much more complex.
“When you look at the science behind it,
there's static forces, dynamic forces that
are being managed,” Baughey elaborated.
“In many cases, the lightweighting is what
you're achieving but understanding why
you're achieving it is important. Sometimes
it's more mass management than just
pure lightweighting. Sometimes it's ‘can
we lower the centre of gravity or shift the
centre of gravity in certain areas and take
advantage?’ Another thing is the inertia of
it. A lot of additive is being applied to mass
motion components that are dynamically
rotating or shifting back and forth and
taking out that inertia takes out all of the
efficiency losses, as well as the durability.
[…] The key thing is looking beyond just the
typical term of lightweighting and looking
at the fundamental sciences that are being
applied to solve problems.”
Thanks to innovations in drivetrain,
autonomy and electric vehicles, the
automotive industry is evolving. Because
of that, Baughey says the fundamental
architecture of a vehicle is now also being
challenged. Rather than doing things the
way they’ve always been done (“We weren't
fundamentally just rolling out a blank sheet
of paper very often,” Baughey recalls of
his past experience working in systems
engineering and vehicle programme
management.), now it’s about
“getting down to the math” to
understand the problems the
autoMOTIVE & rail
“The key is to look
at the fundamental
sciences.”
industry is trying to solve, and that’s applicable
to not only advanced motorsport applications
but is also trickling down into the consumer
space.
“To be quite frank, if the industry hadn't been
disrupted through autonomous and EV and
so on, this would probably not be advancing
as fast as it is now and entering into the
consumer side,” Baughey added.
Recent material developments are also
driving more advanced applications.
In metals, a newly certified Scalmalloy
high-strength aluminium alloy has been
engineered for weight-efficient, load-bearing
structural components including suspension
brackets and energy and fluid management
components, while Certified M789 is opening
up possibilities for automotive parts with
higher fidelity and thinner walls, like die inserts
with conformal cooling, tire tread moulds, drive
train parts and axle components. It’s not just
metals either, the recently added Accura AMX
Rigid Black SLA resin has been adopted by
TOYOTA Gazoo Racing to create long-lasting
polymer production parts, while Baughey
also notes some less obvious opportunities
leveraging 3D Systems clear resins to
manufacture interior automotive parts such
as complex structures to pipe lighting through
the vehicle.
Baughey added: “Some of the
advancements in materials have really taken
them from what were traditionally prototype-
use materials, really into what an automotive
lifecycle is going to look like.”
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 011
 THE INSIDE T
S
tefanie Brickwede, Head of 4RIGHT:
Additive Manufacturing at HANDRAIL SIGN WITH BRAILLE (SOURCE:
Deutsche Bahn and Managing DEUTSCHE BAHN AG / OLIVER LANG)
Director of Mobility goes Additive
(MGA) talks to Laura Griffiths about 3D
6BELOW:
STEFANIE BRICKWEDE
printing in the rail industry, why sustainability
needs to be taken seriously and how the
pandemic pressured companies to innovate.

TCT: Last time we caught up you were on

a MakerBot roundtable talking about the
use of 3D printing during the pandemic.
Deutsche Bahn had already been using AM
for a long time, but can you give us your
take on how AM adoption was ramped up
during that time?

SB: It's not just the pandemic. We have to

cope with such interruptions of supply chains
nearly every month. And what really helped
during the pandemic, those companies are
more minded to consider alternative ways
of production. Many companies say they are
much more open to additive manufacturing
than before. That’s one of the reasons. Others
are that they were under economic pressure, department?’, you will always find people
they have to move. The need to think about who are really waiting for someone to ask
innovation is much bigger than two years ago. them.

TCT: During that panel, the question was
asked of whether this open mindset was
really going to stick with us post-pandemic.
And as you've just said, it's not just about a
pandemic. What are your thoughts now?
SB: So many companies have discovered
that they can use the technology for parts,
spare parts, whatever you can think of. You
can see a lot of it in tooling. For tooling, you
don't need any certification so those are the
low hanging fruits. In the railway sector, also
far beyond in the automotive sector, they’ve
used AM for a very long time for prototyping
and now more and more for tooling. They
have printers on their premises, in their
maintenance workshops or production
halls, and the logic just to have an idea,
produce it overnight and use it the next day
is really great. This is something we are now
experiencing also within Deutsche Bahn and
other railway companies. Within the network,
we have eight European railway companies.
The others are thinking and considering
exactly the same.
What you can also experience is that you
have a lot of younger and even older people
who have a printer at home and bring the
idea to the job. If you ask people ‘who is
interested in joining in a 3D printing project or
TCT: That’s really interesting. We often
hear stories of it being hard to convince
people to turn to 3D printing…
SB: You have people who are in the
maintenance workshops. And of course,
they're not the managers so they have to
wait until they ask for that. But as soon as
they see the chance to use their knowledge
which they already gained, and to improve
that, they're often very much interested.
Whenever I’ve had an article in any kind
of newspaper, people within our corporate
contact me and say, ‘Oh, I didn't know about
that, that Deutsche Bahn already prints so
much. How can I help?’ Or ‘Is there any
opportunity?’ I say, ‘Sure, come into our
project!’ But you have to be open minded,
you need some backing from management,
which we definitely have.
TCT: You mentioned it's not just
Deutsche Bahn, there are lots of other rail
companies using AM. As more companies
turned to AM throughout the pandemic,
did you already feel ahead of the curve?
SHOWN:
SB: In the railway sector, Deutsche Bahn SECONDARY RAIL STOP
and SNCF, they are leading by far. But (SOURCE: DEUTSCHE BAHN)
the others are very open to that. We have

012 / www.tctmagazine.com / 29.5


TRACK
a working group, which is called
RAILiability, they're working on rail
and liability and the exchange in that
working group is so open.
What you can also see is that, we
all know that the automotive sector
is really dealing with big change
management projects, they have to
focus on e-mobility so they really have
to change the mind of the people. The
suppliers also suffer from that crisis in
automotive and it's really astonishing
that not only one, but quite a few
already considered producing AM
parts for the medical sector. Three
years ago, no one would have ever
had the idea as an automotive
supplier to produce parts for medical,
that would have been too far. Now
you can really experience that
because they have to change, they
have to be open minded, they have
to focus on other markets. Medical
definitely is a great market for AM
and for us, it's great because within
the [MGA] network, we already cover
both mobility and medical. When we
started with medical three years ago,
I was asked by my board, ‘why do
we do medical? We come from the
railway.’ I said, okay, let's give it a try
and if it doesn't work within the next
two years, then we'll stop it again. After
the pandemic, no one would ever ask
such a question again.
TCT: For rail applications, are we
talking mainly about polymers or
metals?
SB: Metals as well. What you can
see is that two thirds in the railway
sector is polymers and about one third
is metals. So, if it comes to tooling
cases or smaller parts within the
interior of trains, we are often talking
about polymer parts. There we have
to meet high levels concerning flame
retardancy, which are even higher than
aerospace. If you want to print parts to
prevent the standstill of trains, we are
often talking about metals. The metals
are, of course, much more expensive
and certification is more crucial. What
I find really interesting is that we are
now working on the first use cases of
concrete for the stations, for instance.
I am absolutely sure that there's huge
potential but you can compare it to
printing spare parts five years ago, the
printing of concrete is quite new. They
have to work on the certification but
also on materials and [finding] the right
use cases.
We are also now working on
elastomer printing and I'm not talking
about prototyping elastomers. TPUs
for prototyping existed for quite a long
time but now we are talking about
spare parts and those spare parts have
to go on the trains for at least five to six
years, being in contact with oil and dirt
and whatever you can consider.
TCT: Can you give us a sense of
what Deutsche Bahn’s in-house AM
capacity looks like?
SB: We have a great team and
we don't have that many printers
because we still rely, I would say
to 85%, at least, on printing service
bureaus. We don't want to focus on
the buying, if machines are suitable or
not because we want to focus more
on the solutions for use cases. And
we're not a producing company. We're
just a maintainer. For us, it's more
important to cover a very broad variety
of different materials, technologies and
use cases, and to know exactly what
is the matching technology for the use
case and also to be very open to new
technologies. […] We want to focus on
not just on dealing with one or two or
three machines. We now have now
more than 60 desktop printers within
the company. Those are mainly for
training, tooling and giving people the
opportunity to materialise their ideas.
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 013
autoMOTIVE & rail
TCT: Does that involve a lot of
redesign or is it better to repurpose
current designs for AM?
SB: In maintaining sectors in
general, you would always stick to the
full fit function of the previous part. So
you would not re-design or do bionic
design. That is something companies
can do who are really constructing
and then of course you get the full
potential, but if you have to stick to
certification processes, you would not
change that much because, of course,
we are still in a phase that many
authorities have to learn about AM.
First they have to trust the technology
and this is much easier to prove if
you stick to the former designs. From
month to month, it's getting more
open.
TCT: One of the mission points for
Mobility goes Additive is ecological
sustainability. Can you touch on
how AM contributes to that?
SB: Most of the companies in the
AM sector are either quite new start-
ups, or small, midsize companies.
So usually, we have to give them
a wake up call to focus more on
ecological sustainability and not just
greenwashing. We have to focus
more on the ecological sustainability
of materials, the whole production
supply chain, how we can improve
that, and it's not sufficient just to say
that we don't need as much material
as other technologies, we also have
to talk about energy consumption,
we have to talk about how that
material is produced. And we have to
talk about great use cases.
This is why we started a study
within MGA in cooperation with
AMPOWER to have a logic where
you can bring in, this is metal
focused, some data concerning
your part, material technology
and so on and they will give you
some indication of how sustainable
that is. Of course, this is not on an
individualised lifecycle assessment
basis, but […] this is what we really
have to work on. Otherwise, the
technology will lose its unique selling
proposition.
We all have to focus more on virtual
warehouses. […] We did an analysis
within Deutsche Bahn and after six
years, you have to throw away all the
elastomeric parts you have on stock,
whether you use them or not. […]
That's a brilliant case for AM.
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Head of Content Laura Griffiths finds out how Wabtec
reimagined a large locomotive component with AM.
O
n the cover of this magazine,
we’ve featured a titanium
brake caliper from Bugatti,
landing gear for a private
Bizjet plane, a Czinger supercar loaded
with weight-saving 3D printed parts,
all manufactured using SLM Solutions’
selective laser melting (SLM) technology.
You might be thinking, ‘That’s great, but
it’s not everyday life.’ Well, if the work the
German metal AM leader is carrying out
with Wabtec is anything to go by, that may
not be the case for very long.
Wabtec, a supplier of equipment and
services to the global rail industry,
recently set itself the task of redesigning
a traditionally manufactured locomotive
brake panel. The metal panel is a critical
component made up of four different
parts and a heavy one at 52 lbs.
Manufactured in France with a lengthy
lead time of 3-6 months for a customer in
the U.S., Wabtec looked to AM to develop
a more efficient alternative.
“The challenge we had was to deliver
some parts, very few parts, to one of
our customers in North America,” Henri
de Chassey, Additive Manufacturing
leader for Wabtec Transit, told TCT. “The
problem we have is that the normal lot
to produce this kind of part is very high.
We're speaking about 20 or 30 parts, and
the quantity here was only three to four
pieces. So it was very difficult for us to
find a supplier. That's why we considered,
very quickly, [an] additive manufacturing
solution.”
With a full team devoted to AM, and a
newly opened 11,000 square-foot facility
at Pittsburgh’s Neighborhood 91 AM
production campus, Wabtec currently has
a number of metal machines in-house
covering SLM and binder jet technologies,
including an SLM 280 geared to Inconel
and SLM 800 dedicated to aluminium. It
was the scale and speed of the latter that
enabled the company to redesign the
brake panel as a single component.
After what Henri describes as a
“complete rework of the plate”, the
SHOWN:
WABTEC BRAKE PANEL 3D PRINTED
ON AN SLM 800 (SOURCE: WABTEC)
panel’s weight was halved, and lead
times reduced by 70%. The part was put
through rigorous testing and certification
processes to ensure both its safety and
so that the full lifecycle of the panel,
which could be at least ten years when
installed on a train, would be equal, or
even superior to the original part.
The brake panel is just one part
Wabtec has been exploring with AM.
The company has also been testing
“Our SLM 800
is opening a
new world
for us.”
autoMOTIVE & rail
out other critical components such as heat
exchangers and brake controllers as it looks
to develop pilot projects with customers to
demonstrate where the technology makes
sense. Right now, the biggest opportunity
is in part obsolescence. Today, 66% of 3D
printed parts for European railway end users
are due to obsolescence and many of those
issues stem from original suppliers who do
not exist anymore. Wabtec recently shared
that it already has more than 8,000 parts on
running railway equipment manufactured by
additive technologies and is targeting over
25,000 parts by 2025.
“When we speak about obsolescence,
for example, it's really important for our
customer to have the part as soon as
possible as it may prevent a train from being
used,” Henri said. “Our customers can face
fines of €10K to €15K per day when the train
is stopped for missing components so, you
can imagine the pressure they have. If you're
able to come and say, we have a solution that
can provide you the missing parts to put your
train/metro/tram back in service’, of course, it
will be very well appreciated.”
This new method of manufacture has
also brought sustainable advantages due
to reduced material and transportation
emissions, bolstering Wabtec’s mission, first
set out in 2017, to create greener and more
future-ready products. According to SLM
Solutions, the ability to sync print parameters
to any SLM 800 machine around the world
also makes it much easier to manufacture
locally.
“Our SLM 800 is opening a new world for
us because we can now bring to market very
large parts,” Henri concluded. “This is really
interesting because we are thinking about
solving issues due to obsolescence for our
after-market customers […] and thankfully
with this machine we’ve succeeded with
some very incredible parts. We also have
many other ideas and it's changing the
way to design the new original equipment
because people on R&D are now thinking
to additive manufacturing from the first part
concept development.”
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 015
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 autoMOTIVE & rail

WORDS: SAM DAVIES

Senior Engineer Malini Dusey talks to TCT about GM's application of AM.

A
s Scott Crump’s career
came to its end last year,
the inventor of Fused
Deposition Modelling
began to reflect on many of the
highlights in his 31-year stint in the
additive manufacturing sector afforded
him. There were the gruelling night-
Senior Engineer Malini Dusey
suggesting that GM has established
“A quick itself as somewhat of a leader in 3D
printed automotive tools. Dusey and
success her colleagues at the Warren Tech
Center are responsible for the additive
makes a manufacture of such components, which
are then distributed to GM Assembly

great
time shifts in the 80s, the pursuit of Plants in as little as 24 hours.
investment in the 90s, partnerships with

some of the biggest manufacturers in
the 00s and, of course, the mainstream
media attention of the 2010s.
In the year before he retired, though,
there was one manufacturing site
visit that would stand out, that would
represent the progress 3D printing
technology had made and that would
confirm to Crump that his efforts over
the preceding three decades had been
worthwhile.
At a General Motors (GM) facility,
he joined a group of 25 engineers in
walking up and down various segments
of a production line and placing post-it
notes whenever they found a suitable
3D printing application. Crump expected
they’d find around 20 between them.
They identified 200.
advocate.”
General Motors’ use of 3D
printing can be traced back to
the early days. The company has
long utilised processes like FDM
for prototyping, but as with many
other automakers, has seen the
application of the technology grow
in recent years.
The company’s big wins have
come predominantly in tooling
applications, with
General Motors
Additive
Manufacturing
“When GM is poised to put new
vehicles on the road,” Dusey says, “we
are looking at deploying tooling very
efficiently and very rapidly, looking at
what are the needs, how can we improve
processes, where are the biggest
challenges, where are the areas that we
can actually make a difference? Lead
time reduction is of utmost importance,
and we are seeing that, with the use of
additive manufacturing, we are able to
build these tools very quickly, adapt to
the process, they conform to the shape
exactly what the job is on hand, and also
lightweight them.”
More often than not, GM exploits its
healthy repertoire of FDM systems,
which was bolstered in late 2019
with 17 additional Stratasys
systems, including several

5
ABOVE:
3D PRINTED HAND APPLY TOOL MADE IN THE GM AIC
(PHOTO BY STEVE FECHT FOR GENERAL MOTORS)

29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 017

 3D Print Production Parts
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SHOWN:
FDM 3D PRINTER AT THE
GM AIC. (PHOTO BY STEVE
FECHT FOR GENERAL
MOTORS)
F900 platforms. This equipment
is used to additively manufacture
handheld tools, as well as larger
parts that may need assembling
after the print, with powder bed
fusion technology also being
available. FDM has been invested
in for its ability to produce load-
bearing applications with carbon
fibre-reinforced nylon and other
‘highly engineered plastics’, while
its SLS systems are more likely to
be deployed for thin-walled parts.
As General Motors opened its
Additive Industrialization Center
at the Warren Tech Center last
year, the company outlined its
commitment to ‘productionising 3D
printing’ and revealed the Cadillac
CT4-V and CT5-V Blackwing
models to be the first GM
production vehicles equipped with
3D printed parts.
For these production parts,
General Motors will take the same
approach as it has with its tooling
components. It’s an approach
that has so far worked – in last
year’s launch of full-size SUVs at
the Arlington Assembly plant in
Texas, GM supplied around 100
hand-apply tools which have been
additively manufactured in nylon
carbon fibre composite instead
of aluminium, bringing the weight
down in some parts from between
10-40lbs to 3lbs.
“Just because you can use
additive for something, doesn’t
mean that you should,” Dusey
says. “As we look around again,
it’s fuelled by the needs and
challenges of our manufacturing
plants and our folks on the floor
and also our supply base, because
the supply case is stretched just as
thin in terms of everything moving
so fast. Looking at their challenges
and seeing what it is that we can do to
help build tools to support their needs
is what they’re focused on. That allows
us to identify the critical needs where
additive would be a good solution.”
General Motors leans on the insights
of a range of personnel to identify
internal applications of additive. Shop
floor staff, engineers, management and
suppliers have all been engaged as
General Motors looks to get the most
out of the technology. And as Crump
fondly remembers, it’s not uncommon for
the company to also tap into the design
expertise of 3D printing tech suppliers in
a bid to find solutions.
“It’s company-wide,” Dusey finishes.
“It comes all the way from the folks on
the shop floor who are actually using
SHOWN:
MALINI DUSEY HOLDS
TOOLS MADE AT
THE GM ADDITIVE
INDUSTRIALIZATION
CENTER USING A 3D
PRINTER AT THE GM TECH
CENTER IN WARREN,
MICHIGAN. (PHOTO
BY STEVE FECHT FOR
GENERAL MOTORS)
autoMOTIVE & rail
SHOWN:
GM ADDITIVE
INDUSTRIALIZATION CENTER.
(PHOTO BY STEVE FECHT FOR
GENERAL MOTORS)
it – they have the most immediate need
– however they will only know what’s
possible if they are made aware of the
capabilities of additive and even more
so if they have experienced some quick
successes. A quick success makes a great
advocate and allows them to come up with
new ideas in the future. This is relevant
from the manufacturing floor all the way
to management. Each team has different
needs and is made up of different folks
that are looking to expedite their work
in a different way. The needs are varied.
However, once they are made aware of
what the capabilities are, it very quickly is
translated to the application.”
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 019
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HOW GREEN IS AM?
TCT Head of Content Laura Griffiths asks the experts.
I
t was an astute and well-
timed comment from Stefanie
Brickwede in an interview for
our rail feature (page 12) that
prompted the question which headlines
this very article. Brickwede, Head of
Additive Manufacturing at Deutsche
Bahn, suggested we need to give AM
companies a wakeup call “to focus more
on ecological sustainability and not just
greenwashing.”
Brickwede isn’t the first to use the
term “greenwashing”, the idea that a
product can be marketed as sustainable
without having the credentials to back
it up, in reference to the AM sector. The
topic has increasingly found its way
into conversations amongst those in
the industry who want to ensure AM’s
green credentials are more than just
buzzwords and backed up by real data.
ANALYSING THE DATA
It’s easy to think of AM as sustainable.
You’re adding material where needed,
theoretically using less than that of a
subtractive method. With the advent
of distributed manufacturing, you’re
hopefully producing much closer to
the point of need, reducing emissions
along the way, and through digital
warehousing, only producing those
parts when you need them. With
increased freedom of design, you can
reduce weight, potentially saving costs
and energy over a part’s lifecycle. But
it’s not so clear cut.
“It's like a double-
edged sword,”
Runze Huang,
PhD, CEO &
Co-founder
at ExLattice,
Inc. and
author of
a number
of papers
focusing on
the energy
and emissions
saving potential
of AM, says. “The
unique advantages
of AM, such as
customisation,
distributed production, flexibility, and
multi-material applications, are creating
complexity and unique challenges
in the end-of-life of AM products. It
needs to be considered more and
addressed better now as we still have
time before AM entering the mainstream
of manufacturing and causing the
sustainability issues 20 years later.”
Speaking on an upcoming episode
of the Additive Insight podcast, AM
consultant Phil Reeves echoed Huang’s
thoughts and expressed the need to
consider the full lifecycle of an AM part.
“You have to look at full lifecycle, end-
to-end sustainability and I think we do
have some issues,” Reeves explains,
“certainly on the polymer side, our
polymer chemistry which is maybe not
as green as they could be; the actual
additive manufacturing processes
themselves are not as energy efficient
as they could be – they haven’t been
designed around energy efficiency. If
you look at some of them, you pre-heat
a significant amount of material
to just below its melting
temperature, you hit it
with a laser – that’s an
incredibly inefficient
laser – you lose lots of
energy in the room,
you end up with
a cake of material
that you then cool
down for 24 hours.
That’s not an efficient
manufacturing process.”
Reeves suggests the next
industry trend will need to be
around “efficiency” of machines, supply
chains and materials but also cautions
that if we want to encourage the use of
AM for production, not just prototyping,
then the industry will need to keep up
with environmental legislation.
Reeves continues: “The worry is that
we won’t and at some point, somebody
will turn around in the corporate social
responsibility group of a large car
company and say, ‘that material you’re
using in prototyping, we can’t use that
anymore, we’re going to be legislated
SUSTAINABILITY
SPONSORED BY
against it,’ so I do think we have to think, as
an industry, seriously about sustainability.”
Pierre Forêt, Head of AM at industrial
gases and engineering company Linde,
agrees that we need to be talking more
about efficiency. Linde has developed
technologies to retain the quality of metal
powder prior to printing and ensure
optimum atmospheric conditions within
the print chamber. Forêt says the biggest
potential drawback to AM is energy usage
– both in the type and volume of energy it
consumes.
“While no one solution can claim to make
additive manufacturing more sustainable
than traditional production methods,
through a combination of technologies
– particularly associated to the use of
atmospheric gases – the process can be
assured to have more reliable, repeatable
quality outcomes,” Forêt says. “Once this
is achieved, the advantages of additive
manufacturing are, at the very least
given the potential to contribute to more
sustainable production methods.”
MANAGING MATERIALS
Materials are just one part
of the value chain where the
sustainability question lingers.
“Material reuse within the
process is still problematic,”
Alex Kingsbury, AM Industry
Fellow & Engagement
Lead at RMIT University,
offers. “There’s no doubt
that the printing process,
whether it’s metal or polymer,
leads to a degradation of the material
and limits its reusability. There are also
support structures, a necessary evil in
many cases, that are waste products. In this
respect, metal is much better than polymer,
as the metal recycling supply chain is
more flexible than the polymers recycling
supply chain. For example, a polymer 3D
printed product does not bear the universal
recyclability symbol. Even if it does, the
polymer recycling supply chain is still highly
problematic. Metal at the very least, can
be channelled through the scrap metal
trade. We are also still yet to really properly
reach upstream of 3D printed products and
properly assess the raw material sources,
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 021

Making Additive Manufacturing More Sustainable:
Ask the Right Question
Additive Manufacturing
provides companies with an
instrument to manufacture
in a more sustainable
way – both socially and
environmentally. As a
result, many view AM as
a positive force that helps
companies operate more
sustainably. However, that’s
simply not enough. Moving
forward, the question is not
whether AM is a sustainable
manufacturing technology.
The question becomes:
what can we do to make AM
more sustainable?
Additive Manufacturing
has established itself as a
powerful and sustainable
manufacturing solution.
The technology empowers
people locally through
decentralized production,
it improves people’s health
and well-being through
personalized care, and it
enables higher quality jobs.
At the same time it supports
a manufacturing process
with less waste, through
mass-personalization and
optimized distribution.
But considering Additive
Manufacturing a green
technology simply because
of the unique benefits
that are inherent to the
technology is too easy.
Similarly, manufacturers of
electric cars can’t claim to be
sustainable simply because
electric cars are generally
considered better for the
environment than traditional
gas-powered cars.
That’s why a first step is
for companies to organize
themselves in a sustainable
way, by considering the
impact of their decisions on
ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE
their workers, customers,
suppliers, community, and
the environment. But in order
to make truly significant
contributions, companies
need to invest in innovative
technologies that help to
advance their respective
industries.
“The AM industry can and
needs to do more,” says
Fried Vancraen, founder
and CEO of Materialise,
“by developing new and
innovative ways to reduce
our impact on the societies
we interact with and the
environments we operate
in. We recognize this and
proudly develop innovative
technologies to reduce our
impact – from reducing scrap
rates and increasing the
usage of recycled powder to
creating the workplaces of
the future.”
At Materialise we believe
that continued investment
in innovative technologies
is key to establish Additive
Manufacturing as a truly
sustainable manufacturing
technology. Recently,
Materialise introduced
Bluesint PA 12, a material
innovation that makes it
possible to 3D print with up
to 100% re-used powder. This
manufacturing breakthrough
creates a path towards
eliminating waste in 3D
printing.
And with the Materialise
Process Tuner we help
manufacturing companies,
service bureaus and machine
builders speed up the
process tuning required
for mass-manufacturing
3D-printed parts. This allows
them to reduce the cost
and waste associated with
printing hundreds of test
samples before finding the
optimal process parameters.
In both cases we didn’t rely
on the general consensus
that 3D printing is already
more sustainable. Instead,
we started by asking the
right question: what can we
do to make the technology
more sustainable?

for example, the metal powder that you
use in your 3D printing process. Where
does it come from? What is the carbon
footprint of that process? Was it made
using a fossil fuel energy source like coal
or gas? Or was the electricity source
hydropower?”
Last year Materialise introduced a
solution to tackle material reusability.
Bluesint PA12 makes it possible to print
with 100% reused powder, versus an
estimated 50% currently capable with
polymer laser sintering. Following the
launch of its Bluesint PA12 printing
service back in June, Materialise
proposes that if half of all SLS PA 12
parts were printed using Bluesint, this
would reduce CO2 emissions from 3D
printing by more than 2,800 tons per
year.
“The AM industry can and needs to do
more,” Andreas Vandyck, Sustainability
Coordinator at Materialise, tells TCT. “A
first step is for companies to organise
themselves in a sustainable way, by
considering the impact of their decisions
on their workers, customers, suppliers,
community, and the environment.
But in order to make truly significant
contributions, companies need to invest
in innovative technologies that help to
advance their respective industries."
The company recently conducted
a lifecycle analysis with BASF for the
production of one million pairs of
midsoles. The results showed that for
large-series production of identical
products, AM had a bigger impact on
the depletion of fossil fuels compared to
conventional manufacturing. But if you
consider smaller series production, the
results start to tip in AM’s favour.
Vandyck adds: “Across the board,
“climate change”, clearly stands out as
the largest contributing factor for the
negative impact of AM technologies.
If we look at the carbon footprint, the
biggest contributors are the energy
consumption of the printing process and
emissions related to the production of
materials. In comparison, the traditional
photo-polymerisation process demands
the least amount of energy.”
On the metals side, Sebastian Richter,
Head of Powder Metals at thyssenkrupp
Materials Trading is optimistic and while
he agrees greenwashing is an issue, he
believes metals are in a better position.
“Manufacturers are now using
metal powders to build structures,
which means much lower material
consumption,” Richter tells TCT.
“The AM industry
can & needs
to do more.”
“Additive also allows manufacturers
to have design freedom that can
lead not only to product and process
improvement but also low waste. You
can’t achieve this with conventional
processes.”
thyssenkrupp Materials UK is the
UK distributor for metal powders
from raw materials specialist
thyssenkrupp, including sustainably
sourced stainless steel, aluminium,
titanium and nickel-based alloys.
As a provider of services to the AM
industry too, Richter suggests we
must also take a closer look at AM
hardware.
“As metal powders are low waste
and recyclable materials, potential
challenges in terms of sustainability
for the additive manufacturing
industry may lie with the 3D printing
equipment,” Richter says. “Given
this is still a fairly new industry,
we will probably observe further
optimisations of the 3D printers
in order to make them more
efficient and more sustainable,
for example, by improving the
filter technology, which is
currently complicated
to recycle.”
ExOne, for
example, is
confident that
its metal binder
jet technology
can be considered
green, stating that more
than 95% of powder can be reused
directly in the process via a simple
SUSTAINABILITY
SPONSORED BY
reconditioning step. The company also says
that part consolidation and design benefits
afforded via binder jet can on average
result in 30-50% weight savings, which,
in the case of the automotive industry
can deliver significant reductions in
energy use.
“We have no doubt that our
technology is more sustainable than
traditional manufacturing methods, such
as machining, which generates tons of
toxic waste as coolants are applied to
cutting tools shaving away sometimes
as much as 95% of the stock material
to create a part,” Sarah Webster, Chief
Marketing Officer at ExOne, says.
“While there are new innovations in
green coolants, most of those in use today
during machining remain petroleum based
and nothing in the binder jetting process
comes close to the volume or type of waste
generated during traditional subtractive
machining processes.”
Webster stresses that green benefits can
also be found outside of end-use parts,
namely in tooling (the company recently
launched its X1 Tooling portfolio off the back
of its acquisition of Freshmade 3D) where
the ability to print tools directly can also
reduce waste.
For those metals that aren’t so easy to
recycle, 6K Additive has developed a
technology which specifically addresses
the metal AM market. It’s UniMelt Plasma
technology is said to turn virtually any
scrap metal into 3D printable material, that
includes new materials too (More on page
47). With up to 3 million pounds of titanium
capable of being upcycled per year at its
dedicated ISO9001 facility, Frank Roberts,
President 6K Additive says you can really
see the momentum building.
“It really means something to the
industry,” Frank Roberts, President
6K Additive, says. “Every facet
of who we're dealing with is
really starting to ask these key
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 023
At ExOne, We’ve Always Been Green
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� Binder jetting is a serious tool to make lightweight � The flexibility of our technology is used to enable
and consolidated parts at true production scale all-new sustainable, green innovations
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a dramatic improvement over traditional processes the innovations we empower, our mission is to
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exone.com/sustainability

questions and so it's critical that we
keep the momentum, that we develop
best practices to make sure that we're
upcycling all the material that we can,
and if it can't be upcycled and go back
into the industry, that there's a good
home that it's upcycled and going into
another industry as an alloy addition,
for example. But this is the time where
we need to make sure we keep the
momentum and keep the messaging
strong and really make sure we focus
on proper solutions for where these by-
products are going.”
GETTING SERIOUS
Proof that serious attention is being
paid can be seen in the hiring of new
personnel dedicated to sustainability.
EOS’ Head of Sustainability Björn
Hannappel, for example, joined in
January 2020 and sees the company’s
main purpose as “leading the world
into responsible manufacturing with
industrial 3D printing.”
“Compared to established
manufacturing processes like casting
or injection moulding, AM is still a
rather young and niche technology
and cannot currently benefit from the
scale effects of local production of raw
materials, such as powder, for example,”
Hannappel says. “This is certainly a
topic, but an area that is improving
and will have a positive effect on the
decentralised production of AM parts.
Additionally, at present there is not a
lot of data available to calculate the
positive impact additive manufacturing
is having. At EOS, we also believe there
is a need for more research in areas
such as the closed materials cycle, for
example, the recyclability of AM parts.”
DyeMansion has also announced its
intent to hire a sustainability lead next
year. The AM post-processing specialist
is one of the first companies on board
Europe's mission to become the first
climate-neutral continent and on a
recent episode of TCT’s Additive Insight
podcast, Co-founder and CEO Felix
SUSTAINABILITY
SPONSORED BY
Ewald shared how it is embedding
sustainability into every discussion.
While Ewald admits sustainability
is a complex issue, he remains
optimistic about the “huge
‘What we are doing in
potential” the AM industry
terms of sustainability?’
could have, particularly
It's really a topic
around rethinking
that is pushed by
global supply chains
our team and our
and decentralised
employees and
manufacturing.
we take it really
seriously.”
“I'm afraid that
sometimes in our
They’re not the only
industry, it's easy to say
ones. The Additive
that 3D printing has a great
Manufacturer Green
potential impact in terms of
Trade Association (AMGTA) just
sustainability,” Ewald cautions. “But
announced its first LCA research
then we should also take it seriously.
project with the Rochester
And I think that's the big task that we
Institute of Technology’s Golisano
have as an industry, not only talking
Institute for Sustainability, which
about it but really [taking] action.”
will compare the lifecycles and
environmental impact of an
THE NEXT GENERATION
additively manufactured and
While AM is by no means new, it is
traditionally manufactured jet
still a fairly young industry. Amongst
engine low pressure turbine (LPT)
those asked, there is a common
bracket. The study will include up to
belief that the industry can use this
18 different environmental indicators
to its advantage.
to quantify the environmental
impacts of the part and is expected
“As an emerging industry, we
to be published next spring.
still have chances to establish the
right way at the beginning,” Huang
While the task at hand becomes
offers. “Of course, we have our
increasingly urgent, with AM
own limitations in addressing the
uniquely equipped to deliver if we
sustainability challenges and AM
can get it right, Vandyck believes
is not a panacea. But I feel the AM
that urgency might actually be just
industry has potential to be set up
what’s needed.
as a good example in addressing
sustainability challenges as a whole
“The climate crisis is an existential
to push traditional manufacturing
threat. It comes with a sense of
industries to do more. This will
urgency that forces us to skip
benefit our whole industry for more
incremental steps forward. Instead,
opportunities and faster growth.”
it requires us to drastically rethink
the way we develop and create
New people coming into the sector
products. And when we dare to
are also keen to encourage the topic
think from this bigger perspective,
of sustainability, as Ewald shares:
we start to truly innovate and create
room for new technologies. Such
“We are still a young company and
a climate of radical innovation
many people really want to work in
presents opportunities for AM.”
start-ups, and in job interviews there
is always the question coming up,
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 025
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© 2021 Renishaw plc. All rights reserved.

MINDFUL
MANUFACTURING
T
he governments are debating
legislation, the public are making
lifestyle changes, the activists
continue to protest, but what are
corporations doing to address the climate
emergency?
Increasingly, it’s appointing people
like Rosa Coblens to positions like VP of
Sustainability. As one of the pioneers of
3D printing technology, Stratasys likes
to consider itself a leader in the additive
manufacturing space, the leader on
the polymer side, and it has decided it
should also demonstrate leadership on
the sustainability front. In the space of
two weeks earlier this summer, it joined
the Additive Manufacturer Green Trade
Association (AMGTA) as a founding
member, and promoted Coblens from
a communications role to head up its
sustainability efforts.
The aim, after much talk about 3D
printing’s sustainability benefits, is to
look deeper at the Environmental, Social
and Governance and start providing the
evidence to those claims.
“We’re not looking to share a message,
we’re looking to do,” begins Coblens. “A lot
of what we know about the value of additive
manufacturing doesn’t have data behind it.
We say that we know it’s less wasteful – you
only use the material you need to create the
part, it’s by definition more sustainable –
but we don’t have the research around
that, we don’t have the specific data
points and we can’t improve year on
year because we didn’t create
the baseline.”
WORDS: SAM DAVIES
In her new role, Coblens will lead efforts
in achieving a series of UN Sustainable
Development Goals (SDG) relating to
responsible consumption and production;
industry, innovation and infrastructure;
climate action; and quality education. It
will see Stratasys reduce waste and reuse
materials; promote inclusive research
and make information more accessible;
reduce the company’s carbon footprint;
and develop education and learning
opportunities around sustainability.
As Coblens gets to work, the driving force
for these initiatives has come from above, in
particular CEO Dr Yoav Zeif, but in landing
on these SDGs, it was the employees who
directed the company’s initial focuses by
responding to a series of surveys. They too,
per Coblens, share the leadership’s passion
for these efforts.
“I think that they believe 3D printing is a
solution that, in terms of climate, can really
change the world,” she says. “It can bring
less inventories, digital iterations before
you print them, there’s so many savings
in adopting and adapting this technology
that I think it’s why our workforce wakes up
every day, because they know what they’re
developing is part of this… it’s more of an
evolution than a revolution.”
SUSTAINABILITY
SPONSORED BY
This evolution will see Stratasys set up
projects around its SDGs, implement key
performance indicators to track progress,
establish forums to foster discussion, and
allocate budgets to support the endeavours.
Coblens describes it as a ‘serious
undertaking’ at the company and hopes
the work she and her team carry out could
contribute to the creation of best practices
for the additive industry. Such is the nature
of AM technology, there’s recognition that
the processes can never be perfect, but the
reality of the situation is that Stratasys and
co need to do all they can.
“We’re moving into manufacturing. It’s
resource intensive, we’re not going to be a
green company, we’re not selling a green
product,” Coblens says, “but we’re making a
commitment to always make improvements,
to impact climate in a positive way while we
do this.”
Such is the value proposition of additive
manufacturing and all it can offer – from
lightweight designs to digital inventories
and localised production – Coblens believes
that more people need to be appointed to
roles like hers within the AM space. As the
application of 3D printing grows to include
more production parts, so too does the
responsibility of those who provide the
technology platforms.
“Sustainability and profitability, they work
together, meaning that the more that we
build our business, the more impact that we
can have on each of these ESG elements,”
Coblens says. “The stronger the companies
are, the more responsibility we have to
introduce mindful manufacturing, where
you’re thinking about what you’re creating
before you go into the process of creating it.
We’re not just trying to incrementally change
manufacturing, we’re probably going to shift
the face of what manufacturing looks like
over the next decade, so do it with a deep
thought process about the people around
you in the room, in the innovation process,
the communities you serve, your customers
and their needs.”
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 027
 Advertorial 2021
PERSONALIZED MEDICATION
Additive manufacturing has become an important
production method in the healthcare sector. In one
area – patient-specific therapeutics and drugs – there
are still a number of technological restrictions to
overcome.
Pharmaceutical engineer Dr. Sheng Qi, a scientist in the
School of Pharmacy at the University of East Anglia (UEA)
in the United Kingdom, has dedicated herself to the re-
search of novel drug delivery technology development.
Her research group focuses on pharmaceutical materials
and innovative processes. This also includes ARBURG Plas-
tic Freeforming (APF). The freeformer additively manufac-
tures various tablet variants and release patterns. The APF
process has the potential to manufacture entirely new
personalized healthcare products.
Dr. Sheng Qi is proposing offering more personalized med-
icine: “Customized tablets can be a solution for pediatric,
geriatric, and patients with complex chronic conditions.“
The APF technology and the freeformer, designed as an
open system, enabled UEA to make direct use of stan-
dard granulate from common pharmaceutical polymers
and active ingredients. With no additional plasticizers, the
ARBURG GmbH + Co KG Tel.: +49 7446 33-0
Arthur-Hehl-Strasse www.arburg.com
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THERAPEUTICS
FOR THE FUTURE
Tablets containing indivdualized fillers
and active ingredients can be additive-
ly manufactured using the freeformer.
plastic melt could be discharged in the form of tiny drop-
lets and used to additively manufacture tailored drugs.
Using the freeformer, a wide range of filling level variants
were able to be tested and created at UEA. The porosity
of the tablet allowed the active ingredient’s release rate
to be regulated.
The APF process provides UEA with a considerable ad-
vantage when it comes to testing and evaluating various
active ingredient combinations and their release rates. It
is even conceivable to blend several drugs with specific
dosages and package them in a 3D-printed tablet with so-
phisticated functional micro-structures designed to speed
up patient recovery.
Thanks to its unique advantages in terms of material pro-
cessing and droplet discharge, this AM technology is an
ideal instrument for research projects. Pharmaceutically
approved production materials can be blended and de-
ployed in an additive manufacturing process tailored to
each individual patient.
Further information:
i www.arburg.com

SOLUTIONS
BY DESIGN
E
verybody always has a tendency
to exaggerate their industry in
terms of importance, but frankly,
I think the invention of additive
manufacturing and the factoring in of
algorithmic, AI-based design is at least as
big as the invention of the microchip.”
Hyperganic CEO Lin Kayser is back talking
about the potential he sees in burgeoning
design and manufacturing technologies.
We are a few months on from when he last
spoke to TCT, where he referenced the
‘huge shift’ required to turn engineers onto
AI-based design and where he outlined why
he thought it important that such a shift take
place. As each day passes, the climate crisis
becomes more pertinent and so too does
Kayser’s demand for design innovation.
In the microchip, he sees a product
type that has transformed the computing
sector over the last few decades, and as
it did, companies were forced to explore
algorithmic design. Through Hyperganic,
this is what Kayser is hoping to drive for the
rest of manufacturing.
What motivated him to pursue his
Hyperganic venture was Al Gore’s
Inconvenient Truth, where Kayser's eyes
were opened to the fact that reducing,
reusing and recycling wasn’t going to be
enough to tackle the climate crisis now
facing us. We are around 15 years on now
and Kayser has brought a software solution
to market that – he believes – will enable
significant change to the way products
are developed. And yet, he’s still regularly
pursuing the insights from climate activists.
More recently, he watched a speech given
by Christiana Figueres – renowned for her
invovlement in the Paris Agreement – at
the 2018 DLD Conference. It was further
reinforcement that technologists will be
key in addressing climate change and she’s
‘stubbornly optimistic’ that they will. So is
Kayser.
“When you talk to young people, a lot are
depressed and they’re saying, ‘Everything
is going down the drain, my future is going
to be less enjoyable than your past.’ And I
don’t think that’s true,” he tells TCT. “I think
we have the capabilities and additive plays
WORDS: SAM DAVIES
“The solution to
climate change
lies in industrial
innovation.”
a huge role in that to create something that
is quite positive. I saw the invention of the
smartphone. If you go back 10, 20, 30 years,
there’s no resemblance to what it looked like
before. It’s incredible how much has evolved
SUSTAINABILITY
SPONSORED BY
there. If we can move general manufacturing,
design and engineering of objects to that
paradigm, all bets are off how the next 10-20
years are going to look like and that’s exactly
what we need.”
Of course, additive manufacturing has long
touted the design freedom capabilities it
possesses to enact more sustainable products.
Some have perhaps exaggerated that potential,
or failed to mention how much energy is used
and material wasted throughout the entire
workflow. While efforts are now being made in
the AM sector to ensure additive workflows are
as sustainable as they can be, Kayser suggests
more will needed to be done.
“It’s not about lightweighting or making the
supply chain shorter – this is a great start,
don’t get me wrong, but it’s not going to be the
significant part,” Kayser suggests. “The design
innovation part, these rapid cycles, is what is
going to help us create objects and machines
that can help us solve these crises. If you
create completely new products, completely
new breakthroughs in engineering, that’s how
you get to [carbon] zero.”
AI-based design – often in conjunction with
additive manufacturing – is how Kayser thinks
that can be achieved. Using algorithms, he
believes a new level of design complexity can
be reached; design cycles can be significantly
sped up; and knowledge can be more easily
shared across industries.
Kayser’s vision for the future of design
and manufacturing is one that leans heavily
on innovation and on manufacturers being
prepared to change the way they do things.
But, as he expects to hear at the upcoming UN
Climate Conference in Glasgow, it’s imperative
that they do.
“I think [design innovation] is probably the
decisive element,” Kayser finishes. “I can only
quote Christiana Figueres. She said that the
fourth industrial revolution is the one thing that
can solve this, nothing else. I don’t think we
should forget about all the other things, lifestyle
changes etc, there’s lot of things that can help
us become more sustainable. But the solution
lies in industrial innovation. I think it is probably
the most critical component.”
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 029
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SMALL-FORMAT,
BIG POTENTIAL
I
n the summer of 2017, Formlabs
announced its plans to replicate the
success it had in bringing desktop
Stereolithography (SLA) platforms to
market with Selective Laser Sintering (SLS).
It was a significant development that
would see one of the 3D printing industry’s
biggest brands join the likes of Sinterit
and Sintratec in supplying an SLS system
in the sub-$20k price range. Four years
on, the Fuse 1 – as with the multiple other
‘office-friendly’ SLS platforms – is now well-
established on the market.
So, where do the opportunities lie for the
technology, what are its limitations and are
the machines really suitable for the office?
MACHINIST MOTIVATION
Though Formlabs’ entry into small-
format SLS captured the attention in 2017,
the pioneers of the ‘office-friendly SLS’
movement came from Sintratec and Sinterit
two years earlier. The former brought to
market the Sintratec Kit machine (and has
since launched the S1 and S2 systems),
while the latter launched its Lisa platform
(and has since followed up with the Lisa Pro
and NILS 480).
Sinterit was founded by a trio of engineers
– including Chief Technology Officer Michał
Grzymała-Moszczyński – to address some
of the problems it had identified in the
design and manufacturing space. The
solutions to those problems have
come in the form of the Lisa for prototyping
and education and the Lisa Pro for
functional prototypes and research, both of
which fall under the $20k price banner, with
the recently launched NILS 480 addressing
industrial needs. In doing so, the company
has already racked up more than 1,000
installations.
“Our goal was to make Selective Laser
Sintering technology available to a wide
range of users,” Grzymała-Moszczyński
tells TCT. “As engineers, we were trying
to answer the needs of other engineers,
working on commercial projects, as well
as science. Soon, we discovered that SLS
is a missing puzzle for other branches,
from medicine to research, automotive to
electronics. It was the right direction. As
you can see, other companies followed us
designing their own compact SLS systems.”
Though it took Formlabs sometime
longer to execute its SLS R&D efforts, the
company has made significant strides
this year, attracting the interest of Brose,
Hypertherm, Partial Hand Solutions and
more after the launch in January. Starting
from around $18,499, the Fuse 1 is said to
be designed for minimal upkeep and uses
patent-pending Surface Armor technology
PROFFESSIONAL AM
WORDS: SAM DAVIES
to combat the ‘orange peel’ surface
texture problems often associated with
SLS processes. It is also supported by
a materials portfolio that includes PA 12
and PA 11, as well as the PreForm print
preparation software, which Jacob Wilson
at Additive-X – a Formlabs reseller –
suggests is a key selling point because of
industry’s familiarity with the products.
Such familiarity has certainly seen Fuse
1 users put the machine to good use per
the company’s Engineering Business
Product Lead Kathy Bui.
“The type of customers that we’ve
gotten for the Fuse has been largely for
end use parts,” she explains. “We have a
decent amount of healthcare customers
who are using this for prosthesis and
orthotics and then we also have people
who are making limited run production
of parts. We’re seeing more and more
people use SLS for actual production and
not just prototyping.”
‘MORE THAN A MAYBE’
Despite the launch of the NILS 480
representing a step towards more
‘industrial’ applications, one of Sinterit’s
most renowned users is Rawlplug –
the company known for developing
the world’s first wall plug – who has
deployed the machine to meet its
prototyping needs. Having previously
outsourced their 3D printing jobs to third
parties, the company has reduced
SHOWN:
PARTS PRINTED WITH THE FORMABS FUSE 1
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 031
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SHOWN:
THE FORMLABS
FUSE 1 MACHINE
the lead time for its prototype parts from
two weeks to two days after purchasing the
LISA Pro machine.
Streamlining design cycles was among
the foremost aims when developing or
adopting these small-format SLS machines.
The driver was taking the high-quality
capabilities and material options of
traditional SLS and scaling them down
into a smaller package that was affordable
and ‘suitable for the office.’ This would
allow designers to sit at the desk, model
parts in CAD and rapidly prototype parts
on a machine next to their workstation.
3DPRINTUK CEO Nick Allen, however,
doesn’t believe that to be practical with SLS.
“The term ‘office-friendly’ should really
be seen as ‘workshop friendly’,” he says. “I
wouldn’t want one in an office – the same
goes for other non-SLS 3D printers which
we’ve experienced in the past, none of
them have been fun to sit next to. With
SLS, the big one is dust and no matter how
‘dust friendly’ or ‘controlled with laminar air
flow’ the machines are, the dust still gets
everywhere.”
“Having in-house
SLS 3D printers is
a huge step into
productivity.”
SHOWN:
PARTS PRINTED WITH THE SINTERIT LISA
Having expanded 3DPRINTUK’s fleet of
SLS systems to nine last year, Allen has
been keeping a close eye on the release of
smaller-format machines from the likes of
Formlabs, Sinterit, Sintratec and Wematter.
He’s not yet felt compelled to invest in
the technology for his service bureau. But
Colorado-based Precision Parts Fast has.
“We did extensive research on various
[smaller SLS] platforms, and we liked the
Fuse 1 and user interface the most,” offers
Precision Parts Fast President & COO
Brian Korbelik. “First, it is properly priced
for the value you receive, and it is easy to
operate. Secondly, it has a fairly fast print
time. Although the lasers are not especially
powerful or quick, we are able to stack parts
in the chamber to save our customers time
and cost. Also, the build chamber is fairly
large for a smaller format printer.”
“They do not have the capacity/ speed
that the industrial machines have,” Allen
explains of his stance. “Some fag packet
maths on the Fuse 1 vs an EOS P110 got
me a build time of 100 hours printing on a
Fuse 1 to match 24 hours of build for a P110,
so pound for pound the P110 is the better
option if you are doing high volumes. That’s
not to say that the Fuse 1 is not a good
machine, it’s more to say that if you’re a
bureau, it’s not the right choice.”
PROFFESSIONAL AM
Precision Parts Fast invested in the
Fuse 1 because of its ability to produce
complex geometries and intricate
features, as well as its suitability
for small-to-mid batch and high mix
production runs for customers in the
electronics, consumer goods, and
manufacturing sectors. This, the vendors
will feel, is where their machines can be
of use to service providers.
“I think that it is beneficial for service
bureau to look into some of the smaller
options because of capex upfront,
first of all, and then second, for a lot of
service bureau, you want to think about
incremental scalability and capacity,” Bui
says. “If you buy an industrial printer, but
it’s uptime is only 5%, a lot of capacity is
going to waste. If you buy a printer like
the Fuse 1, you can scale incrementally
as your demand increases over time.”
The same applies for design and
manufacturing brands, where the
vendors of small-format SLS believe
there is now greater potential to bring
3D printing in-house, whether it be
for prototyping or more. Being able
to process nylon materials, per Bui, is
among the main reasons why users have
been able to ‘jump directly to end-use
parts’ with the Fuse 1, while she has also
seen Brose demonstrate the ability to
produce jigs and fixtures ‘just in time’
by bringing small-format SLS under its
roof. Allen, meanwhile, suggests that
companies spending more than £25k a
year on SLS parts - £50 if they require
finishing – should be exploring the
potential of insourcing the technology,
while Wilson notes the cost and time-
saving benefits of using the same
machine to prototype and produce parts
can be significant.
Sinterit suggest that users can achieve
a return on investment within 40 days
with their newest machine and claim that
‘most of the world’s car producers’ have
a Lisa or Lisa Pro system in their labs
already. As such, they can’t comprehend
a future whereby manufacturers aren’t
utilising small-format SLS.
“Having in-house SLS 3D printers
is a huge step into productivity,” says
Grzymała-Moszczyński. “It saves money,
time and sometimes it is crucial if you
don’t want to share your project with
third-party companies. It is more than a
considerable option. I cannot imagine
that, in a few years, a serious design or
manufacturing company would not have
a well-implemented SLS technology
in-house and retain any competitiveness
on the market.”
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 033
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REINVENTING
CASUAL
O
wed to its origins in serving
the US military, its claims of
‘inventing casual’ back in the
1950s and its ability to attract
the custom of David Bowie, Tom Hanks
and Sharon Stone, durability, comfort and
style have always been the focus for Hush
Puppies.
And despite the global footwear brand’s
VP/GM Kate Pinkham recently hinting at
a fresh approach to ‘reinvent casual’ over
the coming decades, those requirements
remain top of mind for the company.
Pinkham made the remark about
reinventing casual when commenting on
the company’s excitement to collaborate
with Voxel8, the Massachusetts-based 3D
printing firm recently acquired by Kornit
Digital, whose high-speed industrial inkjet
technology is used to develop products in
the apparel and textiles industries.
By the time Voxel8 was acquired by
Kornit Digital, its work with Hush Puppies
was already well underway. As with other
partnerships between footwear brands and
3D printing providers, the Hush Puppies
collaboration is exploiting Voxel8’s ability to
print lattice structures.
“Sustainability goes
hand in hand with
customisation and
personalisation.”
WORDS: SAM DAVIES
“3D printing is rapidly evolving as a viable
footwear technology,” Louk Schulten,
Product Development Director at Hush
Puppies, told TCT. “Voxel8 developed,
patented and owns the printer-heads that
make it possible to print our 3D lattice. It is
unique to them and now to Hush Puppies
to be able to create and produce these
lattices. No other company in the world can
produce these.”
FINE TUNING
In particular, the focus is on midsole
inserts, with the lattices being ‘precisely
tuned’ to ensure enhanced shock
absorption. Using Voxel8-printed latticed
midsole inserts, there is no deviation in
shock absorption and four times less
thickness change after 100,000 cycles
when compared to traditional foams. This
means that Hush Puppies shoes fitted with
these 3D printed midsole inserts can match
the comfort of existing footwear products
with a significant increase in longevity.
“For a consumer, when they buy a pair
of Hush Puppies, they would like to make
sure that the comfort they feel on day one is
the comfort they feel a year later,” Friedrich
von Gottberg, VP Additive Manufacturing
Textiles at Kornit Digital (formerly Voxel8
CONSUMER PRODUCTS
CEO), said. “And the problem with
traditional foams is they essentially
collapse and bottom out over a period of
time. So, they may feel comfortable in the
store, but give yourself a few months, they
don’t feel so comfortable.”
“The Voxel8 lattice provides a cushioning
platform with an infinite number of options
to customise underfoot cushioning and
rebound/ energy return that Air, Gel and
Boost [other footwear cushioning types]
cannot provide,” explained Pete Dillon,
Senior Product Developer at Hush Puppies.
Voxel8’s approach to addressing these
issues has been to take advantage of the
latticing capabilities and materials portfolio
of its ActiveLab 3D printing offering.
The company’s technology leans on the
ActiveMix printhead which enables ‘on
the fly formulation of high-performance
elastomers’, whereby the material
properties of the printed structures can be
changed by ‘multiple orders of magnitude.’
ActiveMix supports both extrusion
and spray deposition and is capable
of controlling the precision dosing of
elastomeric raw materials to generate the
aforementioned material property changes
across a single print with one material set.
SHOWN:
FOOTWEAR PRODUCT DEVELOPED
WITH VOXEL8 TECHNOLOGY
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 035
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The company works with high-
performance materials, such as
polyurethane elastomers, and uses
its ActiveMix printhead to adjust the
properties of the polymer in accordance
with the demands of the application. In
terms of hardness, for example, Voxel8
prototyped a series of latticed midsole
inserts for Hush Puppies ranging from a
softer 50 Shore A hardness to a stiffer 85
Shore A hardness, before assessing each
iteration in compression and rebound
tests. This ability to alter the material
properties via the ActiveMix printhead is
compounded by Voxel8’s ability to also
tweak the lattice structure to impact on
performance characteristics like comfort
and longevity.
“You start off with having the best
materials,” von Gottberg explained, “but
then, more importantly, you can change
the chemical composition of the lattice
structure as you’re printing it, so the
bottom of the lattice can be different from
the top, the left, the right, the middle, etc.
Hence, you’ve got another handle to vary
properties and, as a result, you can tune
or customise what you’re looking for from
the lattice you create. This ability to tune
and change chemical composition while
you’re printing is really unique.”
SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY
While demonstrating these capabilities
through its work with Hush Puppies,
Voxel8 has been developing prototypes
locally within days and hours, allowing
the footwear brand to review the designs,
test them, generate feedback and start
the next cycle of iterations much more
efficiently than it typically would. In the
past, Hush Puppies, like many other
fashion brands, has prototyped and
manufactured products exclusively in Asia,
leading to design and production cycles
of up to 18 months.
With Voxel8 proving out the logic of
prototyping locally, the idea for Hush
Puppies to onshore at some point in the
future is certainly on the agenda. For the
latticed midsole inserts, production will
ramp up at Voxel8’s Somerville, MA facility
before expanding to Asia for volume
manufacturing. But Voxel8 believes there
is huge potential for brands like Hush
Puppies to begin manufacturing products
locally again.
Through the work Voxel8 and Kornit
Digital do in the apparel industries, they
are aware that while most brands will
continue to manufacture out in Asia,
there is an interest in onshoring. Though
it will take time to transfer supply chains
from one continent to another, Voxel8
and Kornit Digital believe it will help to
significantly reduce the 18-month design
and production cycles, open the door for
customised products and result in a more
sustainable way of manufacturing.
SHOWN:
THE VOXEL8 ACTIVEMIX PRINTHEAD IN ACTION
“Sustainability goes hand in hand with
customisation and personalisation,” von
Gottberg said. “A lot of times, when you
make apparel, about 30% of it is thrown
away, because it never actually meets the
demand of the consumer: fashion trends
change, etc. But, if you’re making something
for a particular individual, guess what? You’re
making it for a person who is going to use it
and hence you’re reducing a lot of waste, so
they’re all intertwined. And if you do it locally,
you can deliver within days or hours, which
is the holy grail. That’s actually [another]
important element, because as they onshore,
customisation and personalisation become
real. It’s no use personalising something
and having to wait six weeks. If you want to
personalise it, you need to do it quickly. The
brands are going to drive it and it will take
time, but eventually they’re going to get to
this personalisation element.”
This was a driving factor when Kornit
Digital began to consider acquiring Voxel8.
Over the last few years, the company has
identified a series of societal trends –
accelerated by the impact of the COVID-19
pandemic – that point towards a need for
the on-demand manufacture of customised
or personalised goods in a more sustainable
way. Kornit Digital CTO Kobi Mann explained
that the company needed a complimentary
technology to its existing inkjet solutions
in order to facilitate that and become the
‘on-demand operation system for sustainable
manufacturing.’
In Hush Puppies, it has a partner that is
already seeing the fruits of this ambition.
By aligning with Voxel8, it is enjoying the
ability to print parts with a ‘high degree of
SHOWN:
VOXEL8'S LATTICING CAPABILITIES
CONSUMER PRODUCTS
accuracy’ that ‘create less waste and
give each piece a specific function and
purpose.’ The company is also now relying
less on tier 2 suppliers, further exploring
customised footwear products, and
believes it can compete with the biggest
footwear brands around.
“Voxel8 gives Hush Puppies the ability
to address needs and customise footwear
on and under the foot without moulds,
cutting dies and MOQs [minimum order
quantities],” noted Dillon, “allowing for
things like different under foot cushioning
for men’s and women’s or per size; multi
density cushioning with no adhesives; and
upper designs that reduce the number
of materials used, saving the ecosystem
while providing unlimited options in colour
and physical properties.”
“[3D printing] gives Hush Puppies a
competitive edge and the ability to propel
the brand forward to the forefront of
practical and applicable shoe component
development,” Schulten added. “In a
matter of fact, it puts Hush Puppies at
par or ahead of brands like Adidas, Nike
and New Balance who all have shown
interest in the same 3D printed shoe
components.”
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 037
 CRAFTING LA
When this (slightly) Lara Croft-
obsessed editor got wind of a
new collectable being developed
to celebrate Tomb Raider’s 25th
anniversary, the second most
immediate thought after ‘I’ve got to
have one of those’ was ‘Surely, they
used 3D printing somewhere?’
S
ure enough, in a short video from
renowned special effects and prop
company Wētā Workshop showing
the development of the ¼ scale statue
titled ‘Lara Croft The Lost Valley’, Senior 3D Printer
Operator David Duke explained how the technology
was used to bring this dynamic model of the iconic
video game adventurer to life.
Speaking to TCT, Duke shared how his role within
Wētā Workshop collectibles segment functions as
a “translator from digital to physical”, working with
in-house sculptors, modelmaking and moulding/
casting teams to figure out how a digital 3D asset
can be broken down into pieces for manufacturing
and assembly, layout the build platforms to get the
best print results and deliver precise representations
of the artists' original sculpture. Here, Duke talks us
through the development process, the tools used
and where 3D printing makes sense.
TCT: Can you talk about how long Wētā
Workshop has been using 3D printing for model
making and what machines you’re currently using?
Is there any 3D scanning involved?
DD: We have been utilising 3D printing since
before I arrived at Wētā Workshop back in 2009 but
it's only been an integral part of our pipeline since
about 2013. That’s when we got our first reliable
in-house machine. Before that we were using a lot
more hand-crafted and subtractive manufacturing
techniques and only outsourcing parts for 3D
printing if it was necessary. But once we got our
in-house machine, which was a Stratasys Eden 350V
- it changed our manufacturing pipeline completely.
Now we run a large range of 3D printers - mostly
SLA and FDM. For our Masters Collection editions,
we use pretty much exclusively Formlabs printers of
which we have Form 2s, Form 3s and Form 3Ls for
different purposes.
We have scanning available and use it when we
need to capture an element off a sculpture or a hero
prop. But mostly, if the collectible is being sculpted
digitally, we'll be using digital assets that we produce
or are given to us by the client.
038 / www.tctmagazine.com / 29.5
TCT: Can you talk about the inspiration behind
the Lara Croft The Lost Valley design? How did you
move from initial sketches to 3D?
DD: The initial concept sketches came from our
senior designer, Gus Hunter, who experimented with
a variety of poses and compositions. From there
Yorke Yu, one of our sculptors, created rough 3D
sketches of the strongest pose options. These were
then workshopped by our lead sculptor - Gary Hunt,
Richard Taylor (Creative Lead and Co-Owner of Wētā
Workshop), and the team to work out the best overall
composition. From there, Gary started on what would
become the final high-resolution collectible, working
out finer details like the muscle definition and fabric
folds.
TCT: Can you talk us through how 3D printing was
used in the development process?
DD: Generally, if we're starting off with digital assets
it makes the most sense to continue to sculpt that
collectible digitally. And if we're sculpting it digitally,
then we know from the beginning that the result will
be printed. Both 3D sculpting and hand sculpting have
their advantages. And I guess on the 3D side those
advantages would be having more control over really
fine details and the ability to make quick changes.
Many times, characters will have specific texture that
is applied to their costume and in a digital pipeline,
you can dial those textures up and down as necessary
just with a slider. While sculpting is taking place, we
usually print texture tests of different parts to make
sure the texture is reading properly in the final print.
And from an engineering standpoint, working with a
3D model allows us to figure out things like where the
armature will sit inside the sculpture, make changes
to it quickly if any issues come up, and have it be
made at the same time the collectible is being printed.
There's also an advantage to being able to see inside
the sculpture and having control over how much it will
be hollowed out to save on weight - something that is
important when you have a character leaping in the
air.
TCT: It’s a large statue with a lot of detail – were
there any challenges in engineering the design to
ensure it worked?
DD: The whole piece was a big challenge! Not just
because of the scale and amount of detail but also
because of the gravity-defying nature of the pose.
Suspending one character off another character
with minimal points of contact is only possible with
some clever engineering. Luckily, we have many
minds to figure out these kinds of things. It was a big
collaboration across sculpting, printing, modelmaking
and moulding/casting to ensure we not only captured
the dynamism of the sculpture, but that it was also
structural and easy to assemble.

ARA CROFT
WORDS: LAURA GRIFFITHS
SHOWN: SHOWN:
LARA CROFT THE LOST THE 3D MODEL IS BROKEN DOWN
VALLEY TOOK AROUND INTO PIECES FOR MANUFACTURING
2,800 HOURS TO DEVELOP AND ASSEMBLY
We used lots of big block keys for supporting
the characters - basically as big as possible
without being noticeable. The piece is 1/4 scale
and at the time we didn't have our large format
Form 3L printers, so it was a major challenge
to cut the model into pieces that were small
enough to fit on our printers. In total there
ended up being 65 different parts that had to
be printed and assembled in modelmaking -
with the joins and seamlines for each of those
parts needing to be figured out and hidden
away.
“Our in-house
3D printer
TCT: How long was the overall
development process for this piece?
changed our DD: From concept to final painted prototypes,
manufacturing around 2,800 hours - over a 10-month period.
pipeline TCT: Can you share how 3D technologies
completely.”
are being leveraged alongside more
traditional processes? Where do more
traditional methods make sense?
DD: There are a variety of factors which
determine whether a collectible is hand-
sculpted or created with 3D modelling;
time constraints, asset availability, and the
artist's schedule are just a few. 3D modelling
has a much more involved pipeline with
more intermediate steps - for instance,
once a collectible is approved a common
misconception is that it goes right to the printer.
In reality, there is still a lot of work that needs
to be done to prepare that model to exist in
reality - all the interactions of its parts need to
be assessed and subtracted from one another,
SHOWN: those parts need to be hollowed and keyed so
SENIOR 3D PRINTER they will re-assemble correctly once they are
OPERATOR DAVID DUKE off the printer. There is a lot that goes in before
REMOVES A 3D PRINTED
PROTOTYPE FROM A
you hit print, not to mention the work that goes
FORM 3L into cleaning up those prints to a standard
acceptable for moulding and casting once
CONSUMER PRODUCTS
they are off the printer. Traditional sculpting
bypasses many of those steps - once the
sculpture is approved it goes directly to
moulding and casting. However, if a last-
minute scale change is asked for - that's a lot
harder to do that in a physical sculpture than
in 3D, so there are trade-offs with each.
If we're starting with 3D assets then it makes
the most sense in terms of time to incorporate
those assets into a 3D model. It also means
we have a higher chance of getting talent
approval if we have used scan data of the
actual person or model.
But a lot of times we'll use an amalgamation
of both methods. It's more about using
the strengths of each method rather than
choosing one over another.
TCT: Given the low volumes of such
collectables – 950 in this case – is Wētā
Workshop exploring 3D printing for final
products or is it primarily a prototyping tool?
DD: We primarily use it as a tool for
prototyping. Even at low volumes of
production runs, 3D printing isn't really viable
yet for output of final product for a variety
of reasons. The durability of the 3D printed
resins still doesn't match that of castable
resins, plus it's much more expensive. But
probably the biggest point of difference is the
speed of production. It's much faster to create
a mould for an object and cast out of it over
and over (and a lot more reliable too) than it is
to wait hours or sometimes days for just one
part to be printed. Until printing gets much
faster and more reliable, I don't see it being
used to replace moulding/casting for final
manufacture.
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 039
Together
we lead the
Additive
Manufacturing
Revolution

www.materials-solutions.com

THE NEXE WORLD
WORDS: SAM DAVIES
How 3D printing is helping to develop more sustainable coffee pods.
S
ixty 3D printed parts rest on
a pegboard on a wall inside
a Greater Vancouver office.
It is the visual representation
of how far NEXE Innovations has come in
five years as it strived to commercialise its
flagship coffee pod product. From one part
to the next, there’s an almost unnoticeable
difference, and then every so often,
‘eureka’.
NEXE was founded by Darren Footz,
previously of Granville Island Coffee
Company, to bring to market a plant-based,
fully compostable coffee pod to combat
the amount of such products we pour into
landfill every year. While it moved through
its design validation phase, in 3D printing
the company saw a prototyping method
that, through the use of PLA material, would
align with these values. With every wall
thickness tweak, the previous prototype
was naturally recycled, while the alternative
might have seen them dispose of tonnes
worth of injection moulds as it moved
through the 60 iterations.
“Every time we need a new half tonne
block of steel [for example] – if we want
to do that 60 times, and then just throw
them in the trash because the prototype
didn’t work, that’s very wasteful,” NEXE
Chief Science Officer Zac Hudson told TCT.
“Whereas with the printing process, the
only waste is the compostable parts that
you can then throw on the compost.”
The more typically revered benefits of
3D printed prototypes – time and money
savings – haven’t gone unnoticed at
NEXE either. Instead of ordering a
new stainless-steel mould every time
a new design iteration is needed,
NEXE simply adjusted the CAD
design and was able to print a
new part inside 30 minutes. This,
Hudson projects, would save the
company weeks at a time, and
over the course of the five years,
sped the product development
process up by a factor of five.
It has become a tried and
trusted technique for NEXE, who
commercialised the NEXE pod
SHOWN:
THE NEXE POD BREAKS DOWN IN AS LITTLE AS 35 DAYS
in April 2021 and a smaller Nespresso
pod three months later. While Hudson
doubts the technology will ever be used
for production by NEXE because of the
volumes it will be working at – 10-20 million
pods per year currently and 220 million
per year by 2023 – he does describe
3D printing as a ‘fantastic prototyping
technology.’ The 30-minute turnaround time
for a single prototype is ‘quite exceptional’
and NEXE struggles to isolate any real pain
points.
In going from the prototype parts to the
end-use pods, Hudson says the biggest
“With the
printing
process, the
only waste is the
compostable
parts.”
CONSUMER PRODUCTS
difference is the mechanical properties
because the PLA material used generates
a ‘rock hard plastic’, and the specifically
formulated resin that is used in the injection
moulding of the final product provides the
flexibility required to be used by the consumer.
“The one thing [3D printing] doesn’t let us test
that well is punturability,” Hudson elaborated.
“In a brewer, there’s a needle that pierces the
pod and for our commercial coffee pod, they
puncture very well, whereas if you just print
with PLA it shatters. It lets us test the fit and
the seal and some of the filling and dosing
procedures, but to test the piercing we really
need an actual formulation. The ability to use
bespoke resins in a 3D printer would be pretty
advantageous… It would allow you to prototype
more closely to your finished product.”
But until that’s possible, NEXE is progressing
well. 3D printing is allowing the company to
explore ‘advanced pod designs’ that may
have ‘a functional ingredient or an ingredient
that mixes differently with what’s inside’ and
expand the types of beverages able to be
made with a brewing machine. The technology
will also allow it to continue pushing forward
with its coffee pods.
NEXE currently operates a fleet of around
half a dozen Fused Deposition Modelling
3D printers to prototype its products, with its
manufacturing processes also recently being
reshored to further enhance the company’s
workflow efficiency and sustainability.
In this market, it’s needed. If all the coffee
pods the world consumer every year were
lined up in a row, it would wrap around
the Earth 15 times. And it is believed
that between 40-60 billion plastic
coffee pods are disposed of every
year.
“It’s about 100,000 pods a
minute,” Hudson said. “It’s a
terrifying amount of plastic.”
A terrifying amount of
plastic NEXE is looking
to reduce. How quickly it
succeeds will, in large part,
be down to 3D printing.
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 041
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BUILDING FOR
THE FUTURE
SHOWN:
EOS' MAISACH FACILITY
M
arkus Birner takes 45
minutes out of his Monday
shift to talk to TCT. He
is the Head of EOS'
Maisach facility, where the German 3D
printing company completes the final
assembly of its metal and polymer additive
manufacturing systems. Owed to EOS’ lofty
ambitions, Birner and his team are hard at
work.
He stands on the factory floor where the
vast array of EOS 3D printing equipment
is put together, tested and sent out to
customers. Here, there are 4,000 square
metres dedicated to the production and
training areas, 2,000 for the warehouse
and additional space for measuring rooms,
powder rooms and workshops.
Currently, there are 40 pitches where EOS
staff work to assemble the final elements
of the machines, adding the lasers and
scanners, installing the software and
calibrating the system. The EOS team at
Maisach currently work standard shifts from
Monday to Friday, amounting to a total of
40 hours per week. For smaller machines,
like the P1 or M1, the assembly can be
completed within six working days, while
larger platforms like the M4 need as many
as 20 working days to be assembled.
With EOS outlining its intention to build
1,000 3D printing systems per year – to
add to the 3,000+ it already has out in
the field – Birner and his team are set
WORDS: SAM DAVIES
SHOWN:
EOS' M 400-4 MACHINE
to be increasingly busy moving forward. “We are
prepared,” he tells TCT. “We have enough space, we
have not enough employees, but that’s okay. When
we want to [increase the number of staff], that’s very
simple.”
EOS has a forecast for Birner and his team to
monitor the demand for machines over six-month
periods, allowing them to remain flexible as they
manage their workload. While EOS’ smaller format
3D printing systems are assembled and stored
in inventory, the larger platforms are assembled
on-demand and must undergo Factory Acceptance
Tests (FAT) before being shipped to the customer.
The Factory Acceptance Test is a significant part
of what Birner and his team do. Once the core
components of the machine – lasers, scanners,
software installation, etc – have been added to
the machine – and the machine’s parameters
have been optimised to produce the customer’s
product – products like the M4 are put through the
FAT process to make sure the platform will meet
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 043
through the doors
the customers’ requirements. It is not
uncommon for EOS’ biggest clients to
insist on checking every machine as
part of their order.
During the FAT, customer
applications will be printed on the
machine to allow them to assess
whether the printed product meets
their requirements before the machine
is allowed to be shipped. EOS would
typically see around 50 customer
visits for the FAT per year but set up
a live stream for customers during
the pandemic to ensure such quality
control could continue. Thankfully for
Birner, there are rarely any disputes
once they have got to this stage and
the machines can be sent out the door
to their clients without issue.
Those clients include the likes of
Audi, Airbus and Siemens, and with
the demand for EOS 3D printing
systems showing no signs of slowing
down, neither can the team at
Maisach.
“We have 40 pitches for the
machines and now we have 30
commissioning,” says Birner. “The first
step is that we hire more employees,
and the next step is to get a second
shift. [With the M4, for example,] we
have 20 days, so four weeks. You can
reduce it to two weeks when you have
two shifts.”
The Maisach facility isn’t just a centre
for EOS to assemble and manufacture
its polymer and metal 3D printing
systems, it’s also where the company
is developing its AM Cell automated
production workflow.
AM Cell is EOS’ vision for the future
of additive manufacturing, where
equipment is connected to ensure
IP is protected and workflows are
traceable, and production is carried
out locally. Within EOS’ AM Cell
concept, installation qualification,
operational qualification and
performance qualification are
all features, with the information
generated being used to set up a
digital twin of the production workflow.
The user has complete control over
the data moving through this workflow
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 through the doors

“With more
processes,
with more
simulations, it’s
getting better
and better.”

SHOWN:
MAISACH PRODUCTION
FACILITY
and EOS believes it will allow manufacturers to get more
usage out of their additive machines.
“Automatization, shared modules or other components
gives you the better ability of higher productivity of your
machine and the software that you need,” Dr Marius
Lakomiec, EOS’ Team Manager of Digital AM Solutions,
says. “Like you have it with Oqton, Siemens, EOSCONNECT
or other pieces of software, bring them together and then
you have got a nice solution that brings higher productivity,
better overall equipment efficiency and lower costs with a
higher range of quality.”
EOS, then, has a lot of work to be getting on with. As
it continues to prove its AM Cell concept, the demand
for machines is likely to increase. As more machines are
launched, assembled and shipped, those buying the
printers will want to hear more about how an automated
production cell can help maximise their application of the
technology.
“We are still learning, still growing with each project,”
Lakomiec finishes. “It’s not that this is perfect, but this
is the beauty of it: with more processes, with more
simulations, it’s getting better and better. This is [just] the
starting point.”

During the virtual tour, Lakomiec uses a ‘best case

simulation’ to demonstrate the proficiencies of its
automated AM Cell. On one side, a manual deployment
of 3x M400-4 machines operated by one employee in 5x
eight-hour shifts a week would see a 46% utilisation rate,
equating to 4000h/machine for the year. On the other, the
AM Cell operating the same number of M400-4 machines
in the same shifts would see a 79% utilisation, equating
to 6900h/machine. With the manual set-up, 465 jobs
could be carried out per year at a machine cost of €325/
part, yielding a payback period of 2.65 years. With the
automated set-up, 800 jobs could be carried out per year
at a machine cost of €200/part, yielding a payback period
of 1.89 years.

Lakomiec concedes that not every customer will require

an automated workflow, and EOS’ biggest challenge is
to understand what software and hardware technologies
its customers are using to schedule and manage their
production processes. While many still use simple Excel
files to run their workflows, he expects production setups
to become increasingly more complex, which can be better
handled with concepts like the AM Cell.

“In my 12 years being part of additive,” Lakomiec said, “I

did hundreds of calculations, but I never had the chance to
have these kinds of sophisticated calculations as my team
is doing now with our digital twins. I was not even aware
that these possibilities would be out there to have these
tonnes of data, terabytes of data, crunch them and then get
these findings.”

It is still early days for EOS’ AM Cell concept. That said,

and despite the pandemic, EOS worked on more than a
Stand
dozen AM Cell projects with 11 customers in the EMEA
region and six in North America in 2020. Eight projects
H28
used polymer technology, nine used metal, and they were
deployed in a range of industries, including aerospace (3),
automotive (3), consumer goods (5) and medical (1). The
EOS M400 platform in a shared modules set-up is the most
requested machine, followed by the EOS P770.

29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 045

EPP_202105_AZ_TCT-European_192x136_3DP-Infinam-ST_RZ_ZW.indd 1 05.05.21 10:02

NEW
6K Additive President Frank Roberts on giving scrap metal
a new home in AM, new materials and sustainability.
SHOWN:
NON-ERODING THROAT
INSERT FOR A SOLID
ROCKET MOTOR
NOZZLE MADE
WITH 6K SPHERICAL
TUNGSTEN-RHENIUM
FOR QUADRUS
CORPORATION
TCT: Last year, we had 6K on the cover
of TCT talking about scrapping the belief
that AM is inherently sustainable. Why is
that such a common misconception?
FR: I think it's a misconception because
it really pertains specifically when you
start to look at some of the unique alloys
like titanium, for example, where you've
got an alloy that wants to pick up oxygen,
it's going to pick up oxygen every time
it goes through the printer. Eventually,
and in some cases without very many
cycles on the powder, it becomes out of
spec. The industry typically looks as that
material as if it's scrap and there's really
no home for that material, it will fall out of
the cycle for the printer and essentially it
really can't be remelted back into titanium.
What we're doing with our technology, and
we've proven this to be very effective, is
we're able to take that used titanium and
we're able to put it through our process,
we're able to pull the oxygen back down
to within spec, re-spheroidize it in the
UniMelt and ultimately get back to prime
premium product. The whole premise here
is recycling metals that maybe otherwise
didn't have a home and not only are we
able to get them back in spec, but it's
actually a better product than it started out
to be.
“6K Additive
was founded
to focus on
production.”
TCT: One of the key benefits of
6K’s technology is the ability to
produce new AM materials. Can you
give us any examples of the kinds of
opportunities this opens up?
FR: We talked a lot in the last year
about our capabilities with high
entropy alloys, because we have a
very unique process and we're able to
mechanically alloy particles together,
and spheroidize. And because of
the technology and how we deploy
it, we're able to spheroidize much
beyond the capability of traditional
melt. So there's a lot of high entropy
alloy work that we're starting to
embark on with specific customers
for aerospace applications. There
are some medical applications, the
titanium nitride is a great example of
a product that otherwise couldn't be
made traditionally.
TCT: And are there any new
materials that you might be working
on that you can share with us?
FR One of the ones that that's been
very successful for us is the tungsten,
the refractory materials. In working
with a couple of key partnerships […]
we're focusing on tungsten, tungsten
rhenium type alloys, some tantalum
but really focusing on spearheading
and changing how people think about
materials because things that they
couldn't otherwise get through to
traditional manufacturing, we're really
starting to open up the designs based
on unique materials.
There’s really two that are kind
of the next phase. The refractories
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW
are one subset, tungsten primarily to
start but others we'll be working on,
and coppers are starting to really gain
momentum in our design space.
TCT: There’s a sense that there’s
some green washing in 3D printing.
What’s the reality?
FR I would say it depends. When
you talk about stainless and nickel, for
example, I think it's not terrible, I think
the yields are much better than they
have been. When you get into things
like titanium and aluminium, I think then
you start to expose some weakness
in the system. And really, that's our
primary focus, how do we eliminate
that?
The other [facet] is what is termed
as condensate in the machines. That's
collected separately and then typically
just disposed of, and we're very
aggressively working with a couple of
key customers to develop a solve for
that product in particular. […] Our goal is
to approach customers, the large print
shops, small print shops, with a more
holistic view of how they're handling
everything.
TCT: Much of the conversation
around AM is focused on production.
Where does 6K fit into that?
FR: 6K Additive was really founded
to focus primarily on production. We
have two systems that have been fully
commissioned now in our Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania facility. Ultimately, they'll
have roughly 100 metric tonnes of
capacity each. We have two additional
systems that are being built right now
and ideally, will be coming on here
late in Q4. And we're just starting an
expansion of the facility to add six more
reactor bays. We've got more systems
scheduled for throughout 2022. It's
really all about production and scale.
Listen to the full
interview on the
Additive Insight podcast:
mytct.co/6KPodcast
29.5 / www.tctmagazine.com / 047
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MAG
GET IN TOUCH
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27.1 / www.tctmagazine.com / 049
 Expert Column
REMEMBER THE
MAGIC … AND YOUR
MEASUREMENTS
Words: Robin Dallen, Consultant at Arke Ltd
O
ne of my favourite things
about working in additive
manufacturing (AM) is the
look on someone’s face
when they see a machine in action for the
first time. That look of wonder as an image
appears in a layer of powder or the nose
pressed up against the glass as a nozzle
lays down layer after layer and an object
appears. That goes double if the part is
something they’ve designed themselves -
there’s a reason why the first job we gave
interns in my previous role was to design
a name badge and print it themselves on
a very knackered old UPrint. You never
forget what it feels like to hold a part
in your hand and know that before this
moment, that part existed only on a screen
and you put it there. It was this feeling
that largely ignited my passion for AM and
the secret to my continued enthusiasm
for this industry is that I have never lost
touch with the joy (dare I say, magic) that I
experienced when I held my first part.
In 2008, I was a mechanical
engineering undergraduate on
placement in Munich, Germany. I was
working on a project to redesign an
orthotic brace for a partially paraplegic
cyclist. It was to be manufactured using
laser sintering. I had no concept of
manufacturing something straight from
a CAD design so when my boss came
into the office one day with some trial
parts that I had designed not two days
before, I was astonished. Firstly, at the
speed, secondly at the flawlessness
of the parts, and thirdly at the size.
My parts were about the size of
a 2€ coin. They’d looked so
big on the screen! I checked
my measurements - sure
enough, I’d made the test
pieces about 30mm square
and completely failed to
notice that this would
be really small. The first
lesson I learned about
AM, and I’ve had cause
to pass onto others
since, is always check
your measurements.
050 / www.tctmagazine.com / 29.5
“Joy turns
the ordinary
into an
adventure.”
The following month, we went to visit
the manufacturer of our orthotic. This
was the first time I’d ever seen a laser
sintering machine and I was in awe. It
was far and away the most amazing
thing ever. I got to remove our parts
from the powder cake and I simply
could not get over the fact that the
parts were just there, exactly as we
designed them. My childlike wonder
was a source of amusement to my
colleagues. “The novelty wears off
after a while,” one of them said, “it just
becomes part of the job.”
At the close of the project, the
cyclist took our AM orthotic to the
Paralympic Games in Beijing and won
a silver and a gold medal. I never tire
of talking about the small part that I
got to play in that success.
Over a decade later, I can safely
say, I am still waiting for the novelty to
wear off. My career has taken a turn
for the more mundane, some might
say, but AM has never lost its sparkle.
I’m that person who calls AM tooling
“sexy.” I still stand in front of any kind
of AM machine and call it witchcraft,
even though I know exactly how and
why it works. I’m excited to think that
there’s still more that AM can do.
The reason I say this is that
enthusiasm makes things happen. Joy
turns the ordinary into an adventure.
Amazing things occur when someone
gets excited and says, “what if we
tried this?” So the next time you’re
looking at an AM machine or holding
a part, remember how you felt the
very first time. Remember why you
found AM exciting in the first place
and ask yourself if you’re missing
something extraordinary by thinking
of AM as mundane. Recapture
your joy and see where it
could take you. And always
remember to check your
measurements.
Catch Robin’s “What’s
Standing Between You
and Your AM Utopia?” talk
on 28th September at the
TCT 3Sixty Conference,
NEC Birmingham.
 Messe Frankfurt Group

16 – 19 NOVEMBER 2021
FRANKFURT / GERMANY

Enabling
the impossible!
We know that additive manufacturing offers
undreamed-of potential. Only, however, if all the
upstream and downstream processes are taken
into account – from design to material and qual-
ity assurance.
Does your technology contribute here?
If so, do secure your space in Frankfurt.

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