This yr’s Additive Manufacturing Customers Group (AMUG) Convention in Chicago, Illinois, guarantees to be an enlightening expertise with Olaf Diegel, professor of Additive Manufacturing (AM) on the College of Auckland, New Zealand, as a keynote speaker. Identified for his 3D printed guitars with ‘funky’ designs provided via his firm ODD, Diegel brings a multifaceted experience to the desk, combining his roles as an educational, advisor, and product designer.
Diegel’s journey within the AM business started within the early- to mid-Nineties whereas working within the electromechanics sector for lighting and residential well being monitoring corporations. His preliminary encounters with prototyping and the next buy of the primary fused deposition modeling (FDM) machine in New Zealand marked the start of his deep involvement with 3D printing.
“I used to be creating merchandise—doing the electromechanics, so principally mechanical engineering, however a little bit of electronics as nicely. As a part of that, we had been prototyping earlier than committing to $10, $50, or $100 thousand in tooling. I’d need to prototype the mechanical components. On the time, we had no machines in any respect in New Zealand, so I’d need to e mail my recordsdata to the blokes in Australia who would 3D print them for me. Then, every week or two later, I’d get my components again. It allowed us to avoid wasting some huge cash on tooling. I used to be so impressed with it that I then purchased the primary Stratasys machine in New Zealand.”
Contained in the Auckland Lab
This journey led him again to academia, the place he targeted on speedy product improvement and the integral position of additive manufacturing on this course of. Diegel’s lab is comprised of a various workforce of scholars and employees engaged on AM initiatives. In whole, the lab consists of round 20 PhD college students, grasp’s college students, fourth-year college students, and employees members who interact in hands-on work with varied 3D printing applied sciences and initiatives, starting from computational design to creating options for industrial issues. The lab’s strategy is characterised by a sensible, utilized analysis focus, typically working immediately with business companions.
Diegel commonly shares the distinctive work his lab has carried out on social media, notably LinkedIn. There, you’ll be able to see initiatives that vary from redesigning automotive components for enhanced sturdiness to automating vacuum forming patterns and optimizing casting processes, all whereas integrating superior design ideas and software program instruments to deal with real-world manufacturing challenges.
Olaf Diegel’s College of Auckland 3D printing lab. Picture courtesy of Olaf Diegel on LinkedIn.
Altogether, the lab is outfitted with an M290 for manufacturing components, a Sharebot MetalONE for experimenting with metallic powders like copper, a selective laser sintering machine for nylon, a Mimaki inkjet system for full-color prints, some binder jetting methods to discover meals printing and conductive supplies, in addition to desktop stereolithography and materials extrusion machines. One intern has transformed a robotic arm right into a pellet extruder-based system.
Distant Manufacturing in New Zealand
Given its measurement and distant location, New Zealand could also be notably within the wave of superior manufacturing efforts which are being executed globally. Actually, the Productiveness Fee of New Zealand was tasked with an inquiry into the resilience of the New Zealand financial system to produce chain disruptions. Moreover, in 2023, the Ministry of Enterprise, Innovation & Employment launched the Superior Manufacturing Trade Transformation Plan to spice up productiveness and efficiency in important financial sectors.
As these efforts get underway, Diegel’s lab will probably be seen as an more and more related useful resource for presidency and business companions. One of many website’s already vital contributions has been bettering conventional manufacturing processes with additive applied sciences, like creating extra environment friendly tooling for injection molding.
“A lot of the reshoring work we’re doing, surprisingly sufficient, is in conventional manufacturing. The injection molding business in New Zealand’s just about gone to China. Actually, the businesses I used to work for used to get all their components molded in China. Considered one of my colleagues within the lab is a toolmaker by commerce and he’s been engaged on 3D printing instruments with conformal cooling channels that’ll let you minimize your cooling time in half. We’ve been doing numerous work in that space for native tooling corporations to successfully tooling again to New Zealand by making it extra environment friendly, moderately than attributable to distance.”
As a result of corporations can have their tooling made in two to 3 weeks moderately than two to 3 months, they’ve been turning to AM. In a single case, Diegel’s lab was in a position to redesign an eight-cavity instrument for injection molding bottle caps. The professor famous that, whereas instruments in his days at conventional producers may pay for themselves in six months to 2 years, the 3D printed bottle cap instrument paid for itself in simply 27 days of operation attributable to improved cooling time.
“When you have a look at most injection molding instruments, the underside half of the instrument is a boring lump of metal, and also you don’t need to be printing that,” Diegel defined. “So, he’s been machining the substrate, the bottom of the instrument, after which printing the advanced half with the cooling channel immediately on prime of that. It’s a means of getting the price and the print time all the way down to make it extra reasonably priced. Utilizing additive for conventional manufacturing is an space that’s been undervalued—and that features sand casting and injection molding.”
Advancing the Discipline of DfAM
To have the ability to harness AM applied sciences, nonetheless, requires new methods of considering and, maybe, new design instruments. This can be a specific space of curiosity for his lab, the place the workforce is look into automating features of the design course of.
New software program like nTopology, Hyperganic, and Leap71 allow the creation of whole optimized, 3D printed components. Nonetheless, when the identical factor is modified for 20 totally different use instances, these adjustments can turn out to be a major suck of time and sources. For that cause, the lab has developed strategies for shortly tailoring a mannequin to new enter. This makes it potential for Diegel’s lab to supply gadgets like user-specific splints, insoles, and sandcasting molds way more effectively. As an example, the lab can scan an individual’s arm and generate a ready-to-print splint in two minutes. The identical will be carried out for creating insoles from a stress map.
After New Zealand Product Accelerator Co-Director Mark Jones suffered a hand damage, Diegel’s workforce scanned the injured hand and 3D printed a bespoke wrist help.
“I believe that’s going to be a sport changer for lots of industries who need to use additive however don’t fairly know easy methods to do it once they’ve obtained 20 totally different merchandise which are every barely totally different. I believe our automated design course of is a giant worth add,” Diegel stated.
One other design space that the lab has been exploring for 3 to 4 years are triply periodic minimal floor (TPMS) gyroids that couldn’t be produced historically. By 3D printing components with TPMS shapes, it’s potential to enhance the effectivity of warmth exchangers, radiators, and different automotive components. This has led Diegel to work with the college’s formulation scholar race automotive workforce to create electrical motors wrapped in cooling jackets.
The College of Auckland FSAE race automotive suspension, made up of aluminum nodes (AlSi10Mg) on the lab’s EOS M290 metallic powder mattress fusion system. Picture courtesy of Olaf Diegel on LinkedIn.
Diegel’s group is moreover researching the idea of nodal design, which is paying homage to Divergent’s early efforts in 3D printed automobiles. By breaking a big object into small nodes linked by carbon fiber, metal, or aluminum tubes, it’s potential to assemble particular person parts into sizable buildings.
“We’ve been doing numerous work with the formulation scholar race automotive suspension. The entire suspension is made up of printed, aluminum nodes joined along with carbon fiber tubes. Actually, simply this previous yr, they raced throughout Australia and gained.” Diegel joked, “So, we take full credit score for that, after all. No, we don’t truly, however each gram of weight they save is a big benefit.”
The automated house body generator at Diegel’s lab can mechanically produce flat panels that may slide in between nodes. Every node will get mechanically numbered to instruct builders how every little thing will get assembled. Picture courtesy of Olaf Diegel on LinkedIn.
DfAM at AMUG
Diegel will likely be sharing extra insights into these novel advances on the AMUG Convention. At his first yr in attendance, the Kiwi professor will likely be presenting a keynote on design for AM (DfAM). He plans emphasize how DfAM can rework merchandise by including value-enhancing options and illustrate how AM serves as a catalyst for innovation. As a result of the occasion is not like every other within the business, it probably gained’t be his final.
For these involved in attending, direct house owners of commercial AM gear utilizing it for skilled purposes can go to the AMUG registration web page.
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