The BMW Group says it produced greater than 300,000 elements with 3D printing at its Additive Manufacturing Campus in Germany final yr, with an extra 100,000 produced throughout its world manufacturing community.
The German automaker has been utilizing additive manufacturing (AM) applied sciences because the early 90s for every little thing from idea fashions to end-use elements, and considerably for using manufacturing aids.
“The rising use of additive manufacturing within the BMW Group manufacturing system has many advantages,” says Jens Ertel, Head of BMW Additive Manufacturing. “For instance, we’re capable of shortly, economically, and flexibly produce our personal manufacturing aids and dealing with robots, which we are able to individually adapt to particular necessities at any time, in addition to with the ability to optimise their weight. Much less weight permits greater speeds on the manufacturing line, shorter cycle occasions and diminished prices. Plus, smaller robots can be utilized within the medium time period, which additionally cuts CO2 emissions and prices.”
The corporate lately make clear its use of 3D printing for customised, light-weight robotic grippers at its Light-weight Building and Know-how Centre in Landshut, the place a very giant gripper ingredient, used on a press within the manufacturing of all CFRP roofs for BMW M GmbH fashions, might be produced in simply 22 hours, and weighs roughly 20% lower than a traditional various. Whereas the vacuum grippers and clamps for the needle gripper to carry the CFRP uncooked materials are made utilizing selective laser sintering, the big roof shell and bearing construction are manufactured utilizing giant scale printing, which makes use of injection moulding granules and recycled plastics. In comparison with using main uncooked supplies, CO2 emissions when manufacturing the gripper are roughly 60% decrease.
Nonetheless, final summer time BMW was capable of develop a fair lighter ‘bionic’ model which employed topology optimisation software program Synera (which BMW iVentures has strategically invested in) to provide an optimised bearing construction. The brand new gripper is an extra 25% lighter than its predecessor, which means all the course of of producing a CFRP roof of the BMW M3 might be carried out with only one robotic, relatively than three.
BMW can be utilizing 3D printed grippers in chassis development, for instance, for coping with doorways at BMW Group Plant Regensburg. However at its father or mother plant in Munich, the grippers are getting used to carry and transfer all the ground meeting of a BMW i4. For the ground meeting gripper, 3D printing is used to create a sand casting mould, which is stuffed with liquid aluminium. The bearer is optimised for weight and most load capability, and weighs simply 110 kg – roughly 30% lighter than the earlier, standard mannequin.
Markus Lehmann, Head of Plant Engineering and Robotics at BMW Group Plant Munich commented: “On the Munich plant, we’re repeatedly increasing using manufacturing aids created by additive manufacturing. In relation to the sphere of gripper and dealing with methods, we use 3D printing to equip our established grippers with particular person, printed attachments and are already changing full gripper methods with highly-integrated and weight-optimised bearing constructions. When dealing with the complete BMW i4 ground meeting, this allowed us to scale back the burden of the whole gripper by 30 p.c – 50 kg – and thus to increase the service lifetime of our amenities.”
As an early 3D printing adopter (EOS even constructed its first machine to BMW’s specification), BMW has continued to take a position closely in its in-house AM capabilities. Again in 2018, the BMW i8 Roadster featured the first steel 3D printed elements on a industrial car, and its MINI Yours Customised marketing campaign used polymer 3D printing to permit clients so as to add personalised icons and fascia to their vehicles. Final yr, ExOne revealed how BMW is utilizing its binder jet 3D printers out of its Landshut Mild Metallic Foundry for Collection 3 & Collection 4 engine cores, whereas BMW additionally hailed the success of a three-year venture with numerous business companions known as POLYLINE, which was set as much as automate an AM manufacturing line for polymer elements at scale. Extra lately, the automotive producer additionally introduced plans to make use of wire arc additive manufacturing for car manufacturing, having already undergone intensive testing with parts similar to a suspension strut assist.