Fraunhofer and Additive Industries cooperate in the Netherlands
Published on : Wednesday 20-11-2019
Fraunhofer is now picking up speed in the field of additive manufacturing in the Netherlands: announcement made at Formnext 2019.
November 19, 2019 – Through the cooperation of the Fraunhofer Project Center at the University of Twente (FPC@UT) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT with the Dutch supplier Additive Industries B.V. based in Eindhoven, Fraunhofer is further expanding its activities in the Benelux countries. Via the Fraunhofer Project Center, Dutch industry in particular will gain completely new access to current research and development in the field of additive manufacturing (AM).
During Formnext 2019, the international trade fair for additive technologies in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from November 19 to 22, the partners announced their collaboration to join forces and work on key developments in the field of laser beam powder bed fusion (L-PBF). Their aim is to accelerate the implementation of the L-PBF technology for industrial series production. With combined expertise and a holistic approach the three partners plan to qualify new materials, improve design guidelines, increase post-processing expertise and finally enable the integration of L-PBF into industrial process chains – to lift industrial additive manufacturing to a mature level and enable broad industry acceptance.
“Our collaboration will lead to new solutions, that will help industry to improve their AM activities in the field of L-PBF on a fast-track”, predicts Kai Winands, head of the competence field Additive Manufacturing at the Fraunhofer IPT.
Simultaneously with the start of the cooperation, Additive Industries will also be supplying a system for research of metallic 3D printing to the FPC@UT. “The MetalFab1 is in my view the first metal printer that has been designed from the bottom up with industrial scale manufacturing in mind,” says Ian Gibson, Scientific director of the FPC@UT. The system will be used for applied research and development of industrial scale process chains and marks the start of operational work at the FPC@UT in the field of additive manufacturing.
With the joint forces of the three partners, a competence pool of experts in the field of additive manufacturing processes and latest technology will now be available for companies especially in the Netherlands.