Sciaky Brings Direct Manufacturing to 3D Printing

According to William Cowper, variety is the spice of life. Variety is also one of the spices of additive manufacturing (AM). No two potential applications for the technology have precisely the same requirements, and thus diversity in AM systems brings depth to the whole market.

3D printing with a metal focus is a promising area of continuing development for a number of industries, including aerospace, automotive and defense. A number of different AM process use metal as the material of choice and Rapid Ready has covered a few possible metal AM solutions.

Sciaky, Inc. has developed its own brand of AM with metal it refers to as “Direct Manufacturing” (DM). The DM process uses electron beam melting (EBM) to build layers of metal (ASTM calls this general process directed energy deposition) to create, according to the company, “near-net shape parts.” DM has build times of up to 15-40 lbs. of metal/hour.

“Manufacturers can save significant time and money over traditional manufacturing methods with Sciaky’s Direct Manufacturing technology,” said Mike Riesen, general manager of Sciaky, Inc. “We can make functional prototypes and production parts up to 20 ft. in length and 8 ft. high, using a wide variety of high-density metals.”

According to the company’s website, Sciaky developed the system when:

 Allied Signal Aerospace had a need to significantly reduce its average Electron Beam (EB) welding process time for turbine engine components. The system was required to weld numerous parts in one pump-down. Sciaky built a system that offered an automatic manipulator to load parts into the weld positioner. The welding system also featured a movable electron beam gun with a tilt axis.

The system is unique because the in-chamber parts manipulator automatically loads and unloads up to 10 different parts to the weld positioner. This differs from traditional EB welding practices that typically weld one part per weld chamber pump-down cycle.

In place of offering standardized 3D printing systems, Sciaky discusses the needs of its customer and designs a system specifically for their AM needs. According to Sciaky, the company’s DM shares the benefits of other AM processes with its reductions in material costs, lead times, and machining times. Just like other metal AM systems, DM can also save customers money by reducing the need for forging and eliminating wait time for dies, molds and expensive billets.

Below you’ll find a video from Sciaky about its DM system.

Source:  Sciaky, Inc.