[ad_1]
Stefanie Brickwede, Head of Additive Manufacturing at Deutsche Bahn and Managing Director of Mobility goes Additive (MGA) talks to Laura Griffiths about 3D printing within the rail trade, why sustainability must be taken critically and the way the pandemic pressured corporations to innovate.
TCT: Final time we caught up you had been on a MakerBot roundtable speaking about the usage of 3D printing throughout the pandemic. Deutsche Bahn had already been utilizing AM for a very long time, however are you able to give us your tackle how AM adoption was ramped up throughout that point?
SB: It isn’t simply the pandemic. We now have to deal with such interruptions of provide chains practically each month. And what actually helped throughout the pandemic, these corporations are extra minded to contemplate other ways of manufacturing. Many corporations say they’re much extra open to additive manufacturing than earlier than. That’s one of many causes. Others are that they had been below financial stress, they’ve to maneuver. The necessity to consider innovation is way larger than two years in the past.
TCT: Throughout that panel, the query was requested of whether or not this open mindset was actually going to stay with us post-pandemic. And as you’ve got simply stated, it is not nearly a pandemic. What are your ideas now?
SB: So many corporations have found that they’ll use the expertise for components, spare components, no matter you may consider. You possibly can see lots of it in tooling. For tooling, you do not want any certification so these are the low hanging fruits. Within the railway sector, additionally far past within the automotive sector, they’ve used AM for a really very long time for prototyping and now increasingly for tooling. They’ve printers on their premises, of their upkeep workshops or manufacturing halls, and the logic simply to have an thought, produce it in a single day and use it the following day is admittedly nice. That is one thing we are actually experiencing additionally inside Deutsche Bahn and different railway corporations. Throughout the community, we’ve got eight European railway corporations. The others are considering and contemplating precisely the identical.
What you too can expertise is that you’ve got lots of youthful and even older individuals who have a printer at dwelling and convey the concept to the job. In case you ask individuals ‘who’s excited by becoming a member of in a 3D printing undertaking or division?’, you’ll at all times discover people who find themselves actually ready for somebody to ask them.
TCT: You talked about it is not simply Deutsche Bahn, there are many different rail corporations utilizing AM. As extra corporations turned to AM all through the pandemic, did you already really feel forward of the curve?
SB: Within the railway sector, Deutsche Bahn and French SNCF, they’re main by far. However the others are very open to that. We now have a working group, which is known as RAILiability, they’re engaged on rail and legal responsibility and the trade in that working group is so open.
What you too can see is that, everyone knows that the automotive sector is admittedly coping with huge change administration tasks, they should concentrate on e-mobility so that they actually have to alter the thoughts of the individuals. The suppliers additionally endure from that disaster in automotive and it is actually astonishing that not just one, however fairly a couple of already thought-about producing AM components for the medical sector. Three years in the past, nobody would have ever had the concept as an automotive provider to provide components for medical, that might have been too far. Now you may actually expertise that as a result of they’ve to alter, they should be open minded, they should concentrate on different markets. Medical undoubtedly is a good marketplace for AM and for us, it is nice as a result of throughout the [MGA] community, we already cowl each mobility and medical. Once we began with medical three years in the past, I used to be requested by my board, ‘why will we do medical? We come from the railway.’ I stated, okay, let’s give it a try to if it does not work throughout the subsequent two years, then we’ll cease it once more. After the pandemic, nobody would ever ask such a query once more.
TCT: For rail functions, are we speaking primarily about polymers or metals?
SB: Metals as properly. What you may see is that two thirds within the railway sector is polymers and about one third is metals. So, if it involves tooling instances or smaller components throughout the inside of trains, we are sometimes speaking about polymer components. There we’ve got to satisfy excessive ranges regarding flame retardancy, that are even larger than aerospace. If you wish to print components to forestall the standstill of trains, we are sometimes speaking about metals. The metals are, in fact, rather more costly and certification is extra essential. What I discover actually attention-grabbing is that we are actually engaged on the primary use instances of concrete for the stations, as an example. I’m completely certain that there is big potential however you may evaluate it to printing spare components 5 years in the past, the printing of concrete is sort of new. They should work on the certification but additionally on supplies and [finding] the proper use instances.
We’re additionally now engaged on elastomer printing and I am not speaking about prototyping elastomers. TPUs for prototyping existed for fairly a very long time however now we’re speaking about spare components and people spare components should go on the trains for a minimum of 5 to 6 years, being in touch with oil and filth and no matter you may think about.
TCT: Are you able to give us a way of what Deutsche Bahn’s in-house AM capability appears like?
SB: We now have a terrific group and we do not have that many printers as a result of we nonetheless rely, I might say to 85%, a minimum of, on printing service bureaus. We do not wish to concentrate on the shopping for, if machines are appropriate or not as a result of we wish to focus extra on the options to be used instances. And we’re not a producing firm. We’re only a maintainer. For us, it is extra necessary to cowl a really broad number of totally different supplies, applied sciences and use instances, and to know precisely what’s the matching expertise for the use case and in addition to be very open to new applied sciences. […] We wish to concentrate on not simply on coping with one or two or three machines. We now have now greater than 60 desktop printers throughout the firm. These are primarily for coaching, tooling and giving individuals the chance to materialise their concepts.
TCT: Does that contain lots of redesign or is it higher to repurpose present designs for AM?
SB: In sustaining sectors typically, you’d at all times keep on with the total match operate of the earlier half. So you wouldn’t re-design or do bionic design. That’s one thing corporations can do who’re actually establishing after which in fact you get the total potential, but when you need to keep on with certification processes, you wouldn’t change that a lot as a result of, in fact, we’re nonetheless in a section that many authorities should study AM. First they should belief the expertise and that is a lot simpler to show when you keep on with the previous designs. From month to month, it is getting extra open.
TCT: One of many mission factors for Mobility Goes Additive is ecological sustainability. Are you able to contact on how AM contributes to that?
SB: A lot of the corporations within the AM sector are both fairly new start- ups or small, midsize corporations. So often, we’ve got to present them a get up name to focus extra on ecological sustainability and never simply greenwashing. We now have to focus extra on the ecological sustainability of supplies, the entire manufacturing provide chain, how we are able to enhance that, and it is not ample simply to say that we do not want as a lot materials as different applied sciences, we even have to speak about power consumption, we’ve got to speak about how that materials is produced. And we’ve got to speak about nice use instances.
That is why we began a examine inside MGA in cooperation with AMPOWER to have a logic the place you may usher in, that is metallic centered, some knowledge regarding your half, materials expertise and so forth and so they gives you some indication of how sustainable that’s. In fact, this isn’t on an individualised lifecycle evaluation foundation, however […] that is what we actually should work on. In any other case, the expertise will lose its distinctive promoting proposition.
All of us should focus extra on digital warehouses. […] We did an evaluation inside Deutsche Bahn and after six years, you need to throw away all of the elastomeric components you may have on inventory, whether or not you employ them or not. […] That is a superb case for AM.
Wish to focus on? Be part of the dialog on the Additive Manufacturing World Neighborhood Discord. Â
Get your FREE print subscription to TCT Journal.
[ad_2]
