Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference - MAMC 2020

The great acceptance of additive manufacturing in tool making business was to a significant extent spurred by the opportunities to create complex shaped, 3D oriented internal cooling channels in tool inserts. These benefits were mainly achieved with Powder-bed technologies, providing reduced cycle times in e.g. injection moulding. Further achievements were made in post-treatment of 3D-printed parts; the ability to remove sintered-on particles and support structures and to smooth internal surfaces of metal parts in automated processes increased the freedom of design on the one hand, but also raised the quality of the cooling channels on the other hand. Recent R&D is now offering novel methods of creating hollows in large parts, which are produced rather with Direct Energy Deposition processes than with Powder-bed processes. Two new solutions are presented which are using filling material for channels and cavities. These fillers are placeholders in course of the further AM processing which will be removed afterwards. Both solutions differ from HERMLE’s state-of-the-art technology, using water soluble metallic materials, flushed out at the end of the manufacturing process to expose the inner channels. The current status of this twofold development streams will be shown, presenting chosen material combinations and achievements in freedom of design of inner geometries using WAAM at least as the main technology building metal parts.