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The rise of additive

manufacturing
Uspon Aditivne proizvodnje

Prof Richard Hagues desk is littered with a curious

collection of objects: a tiny model jet engine, a diesel-fuel
pump housing, a chain-mail vest with a zip down the back, a
football shin pad and a tiny skeletal hand. A seemingly
random array of objects, but with one important thing in
common: theyve all been built by machines that can be
used to print functional components from scratch. Hague,
who heads up Loughborough Universitys world-leading
Additive Manufacturing Research Group (AMRG), explained
that these so-called additive machines, which use a range
of laser-based or advanced printing techniques to build up
models layer by layer, have a number of compelling
advantages over traditional manufacturing techniques.
Na Stolu Prof. Riarda Haga nalazi se neobina kolekcija predmeta: mali model mlaznog
motora, kucite pumpe za dizel-goriva, pancir prsluk sa rajsferslusom na leima, fudbalski
stitnik za potkolenicu i mali skelet ruke. Na prvi pogled sluajni niz predmeta, ali svi oni imaju
nesto zajednicko: izgraeni su od strane maina koje se mogu koristiti za tampanje
funkcionalnih komponenti iz nicega. Hag, koji je na elu vodece svetske istrazivacke grupe u
Lafborou univerzitetu (AMRG), objasnio je da te takozvane "aditivne" maine, koje koriste niz
tehnika zasnovanih na laseru ili naprednih tamparskih tehnika koje grade model sloj po sloj,
imaju itav niz prednosti nad tradicionalnim tehnikama proizvodnje.

Able to build models of mind-boggling geometrical

complexity from scratch, they dispense with tooling costs.
Plus, theres very little waste. While traditional subtractive
manufacturing processes often remove up to 95 per cent of
the raw material to arrive at a finished component, additive
machines only use the material they need to make the part.

Sposobne da izgradi modele neshvatljive geometrijske kompleksnosti ni iz cega, one rade

bez troskova alata. Osim toga, prave vrlo malo otpada. Dok tradicionalni 'oduzimajuci'
proizvodni procesi esto uklone do 95 odsto sirovina kako bi dosle do zavrsne komponente ,
aditivne maine koriste samo materijal koji im je potreban da bi napravile potreban deo .

But most compelling of all, Hague explained, is the

almost limitless freedom the technology gives to designers.
It frees you from the constraints of traditional
manufacturing processes. It changes the kind of products
you can make and the way you design things. You can make
very, very complicated geometries. Its almost as close to
Nirvana as youre ever going to get. Critically, this
unprecedented design freedom enables the production of
lightweight optimised components that are impossible to
make with traditional techniques.
Ali najvaznije od svega, objasnjava Hag, je gotovo neograniena sloboda koju tehnologija
daje dizajnerima . "To vas oslobaa od ogranienja tradicionalnih proizvodnih procesa . Ona
menja vrstu proizvoda koju moete napraviti i nain na koji dizajnirate stvari . Moete napraviti
veoma, veoma komplikovane geometrijske oblike. To je skoro najblize Nirvani sto cete ikad
biti. " Kritiki, ovo sloboda dizajniranja bez presedana, omogucava proizvodnju lakih
optimizovanih komponenti koje je nemoguce napraviti uz pomoc tradicionalnih tehnika.

Gratifyingly, the UK boasts a number of groups that

can rightly describe themselves as world leading. Another
leader in the field is Dan Johns, who heads up the Centre for
Additive Layer Manufacturing (CALM) at EADS Innovation
Works near Bristol. Even without changing the component
at all, additive-layer manufacturing (ALM) means that youre
extracting 26 times less material out of the ground to make
it, said Johns.

Gratifiingli , Velika Britanija ima veliki broj grupa koje se s pravom mogu da opisati kao
vodece u svetu. Jo jedan lider u ovoj oblasti je Dan Dons , koji se nalazi na elu Centra za
aditivnu Proizvodnju ( CALM ) u EADS Innovation radova u blizini Bristola . "ak i bez
promene komponentu uopte , aditivna proizvodnja ( ALM ) znai da ste izvukli 26 puta manje
materijala iz zemlje kako bi ste napravili proizvod", rekao je Dons .

And this isnt just a matter of material saving. John

Piper, engineering consultant on the Bloodhound Supersonic
Car project, which has been working with Johns team,
outlined some of the other benefits. Machining starts with a
block of aluminium or titanium, he said. Theres a huge
investment in the process to make that billet: heat-treating
it, rolling it, reheating it, cutting it up and bringing it to the
machine. Add the issue of making the tooling and youre
looking at very significant process input, even before you
start machining. And with conventional machining, most of
that expensively produced material gets chucked into the
bucket.
At EADS, Johns held up a chunky metal component,
looking like a squared-off gardening trowel with a curved
handle. This is a section of the landing gear from an A380,
made by conventional machining, he said. With this as our
starting point, we used computerised stress analysis and
topology optimisation to reveal where the loads and
stresses in this component are, and used that data to design
a component that consists only of the sections that carry the
load.
He then held up a component built up from graceful,
organic-looking metal curves, flowing around the points
where the part would connect to the rest of the landing-gear
structure. It resembled a scaled-up birds skull. This is what
you then make with ALM, he said. The structure is complex
but, as were building it layer by layer, that makes no
difference at all. It weighs less than half the original
component and weve removed all the redundant weight,
but it would perform exactly the same function. The process
starts with a CAD file, modelling the component in three
dimensions. Once the solid model is in place, engineers have
to make manufacturing decisions - the most important of
which is the orientation of the layers from which the
component will be built. This is still very much a matter of
judgement and there are no automated or computerised
shortcuts. But once this has been decided, the ALM
machines themselves take over, slicing the model into layers
whose thickness depends on the type of machine and the
material being used.
Interestingly, its one of the UKs other great areas of
engineering expertise that is helping to drive the additive
industry forwards. Many members of the CALM team come
from motorsport. It was Formula 1 that got me into ALM,
Johns explained. Wed been using CAD to make solid models
using rapid prototyping, which wed then test in the wind
tunnel. We wanted to go beyond to see what we could do
with metal-based systems and other polymers, and see
where that could fit in to the production cycle. Scaling up
the process from models to full-sized components was an
obvious step, which led Johns to EADS. Its a route that he
sees as extremely important and a real strength for the UK.
The motorsport sector has become a forum where people
who are used to working with the high-tech processes and
materials used in fighter aircraft, for example, mix with the
people whose background is in the mass-production area
and they focus on concrete problems with short deadlines.
Its an important way of getting techniques such as ALM into
the mainstream in a practical way.