BMBF project “IDEA” yields two demo production lines – showing that smaller firms can deliver AM products.
A German business and research group have realised an ambitious goal: to industrialise additive manufacturing – and economically – for both OEMs and SMEs. The Fraunhofer Institutes for Laser Technology (ILT) and Production Technology (IPT), industry partners and RWTH Aachen University launched the BMBF joint project “IDEA – Industrialisation of Digital Engineering and Additive Manufacturing”, three years ago.
As part of the project, they constructed two automated, additive production lines for metal 3D printing with exemplary performance to produce powerful high-end components such as those for gas turbines. In plants in Berlin and Georgensgmünd, near Nuremberg, metal components have recently been produced with 3D printing, demonstrating how not only large corporations, but also SMEs can additively produce individualised components in medium batch sizes economically.
Turbine guide vanes, laser-manufactured in two ways
Eleven industrial companies and four research institutes from Aachen have refuted the arguments that mass-producing additively manufactured (AM) components with metal 3D printing “takes too long, cannot be automated and is far too expensive” by reviewing the AM process chain in its entirety within the IDEA project, completed in October 2022.
Funded as part of the BMBF’s “Line integration of additive manufacturing processes” funding initiative, the project consortium developed a large-scale industrial pilot production line at the Siemens Energy gas turbine plant in Berlin and a production line for SMEs at Toolcraft AG in Georgensgmünd. The digital twin of the factory, developed for SMEs and large-scale series production, was able to significantly reduce product costs even before construction and operation.
Lessons learned
After intensively developing and implementing many sub-processes along the additive manufacturing chain, the partners created two automated, modular production lines to demonstrate the maturity of additive manufacturing as an industrial production technology. That should encourage manufacturing companies to use digital additive manufacturing in series production. The positive feedback from the operators of the lines proves that individual mid-series products can be mass-produced using Laser Power Bed Fusion.
