Additive Manufacturing

Quality management is crucial for the successful implementation of additive manufacturing in industrial production. The HTL develops methods for in-situ monitoring of each step of the 3D printing process. One focus of quality management is achieving homogeneous and defect-free microstructures in the green body. The HTL has powerful methods for evaluating the homogeneity of green bodies. Methods for monitoring and optimizing the thermal treatment processes after 3D printing are also available. In this context, the HTL develops user apps for simulating thermal treatment processes.

The HTL produces prototypes and small series on behalf of customers. Customer inquiries are first checked for feasibility. If requested by the customer, component designs are revised using modern topology optimization methods. Two complementary additive manufacturing methods are available for 3D printing of components: stereolithography and powder bed printing (publication: Additive Manufacturing of Ceramics). In addition, new additive manufacturing methods promising high material quality and productivity are being developed at the HTL.

The 3D printing processes used for ceramics, metals, and metal-ceramic composites at the HTL deliberately separate the thermal treatment from the shaping process. This avoids some of the known difficulties of other additive manufacturing processes, such as thermal stresses and distortion in selective laser melting. Additionally, this approach opens up additional possibilities for material synthesis. For example, the open-pore preforms produced by the 3D printing process can be subsequently infiltrated with melts. Moreover, separating shaping and heat treatment allows for a cost-effective parallelization of the time-consuming thermal treatment. The thermal treatment processes can be carried out in different oven atmospheres and optimized using the ThermoOptical Measurement Systems (TOM) available at the HTL. If necessary, functional surfaces of the 3D printed parts can be finished using a 5-axis machining center. Furthermore, the 3D printed components can be integrated into larger systems using special joining processes.