Insights

TBGA Stress Test encapsulates our 150+ years of combined experience in qualifying and implementing several AM technologies into series production, operating AM printers on the production floor, as well as certifying AM parts in the most regulated industries such as aerospace and medical.

One of the more useful aids I have seen for this discussion is the AM Maturity Model that John Barnes sketched on the back of a napkin when he began The Barnes Global Advisors five years ago (see image). The model has withstood the test of time, and I refer to it frequently in the AM training that I run with the team as their Educational advisor.

Lasers and electron beams have been competing for applications for more than half a century when both became viable technologies to precision weld metals. Electron beams produced a deeper weld penetration, but needed vacuum to prevent scattering of the beam, which meant an expensive vacuum chamber limited the size of applications. Lasers had a smaller weld penetration, didn’t require vacuum and were not limited by chambers, but were susceptible to gas contamination. They both had their value propositions and applications, though, as noted, pop culture only popularized one.

Tensile bars, tensile bars and more tensile bars. If you are a current or aspiring aerospace AM part producer, you must be asking, “How many more tensile bars do I have to pull?” If you are bringing to market a new AM material, a new AM process or perhaps both, then chances are you have been building a ton of these simple “dog bones.”

Let’s step back and take a brief journey through the history of AM to set the stage for how and why consistency is so important. The roots of AM are in what was then called “rapid prototyping.” The term prototyping implied one-off and not “real” production. Early AM technologies sufficed for supporting prototyping; users could live with scrapping two builds for every successful one.

John met with Duann Scott, founder of Bits to Atoms: Exploring Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM), to answer a few questions about TBGA’s training courses along with how people and companies can accelerate their DfAM journey.

The Biden Administration's new package of aid for the nation's manufacturing SMEs called Additive Manufacturing Forward aims to promote innovation and adoption of additive manufacturing (3D printing) to solve a whole host of current problems – from blocked supply chains to off-shored manufacturing jobs to simply losing out to other nations when it comes to innovations in manufacturing. Americans are feeling the effects of the small manufacturers’ failure to modernize in the form of higher prices on goods, Biden said at the launch of the program on May 6 in Ohio.