In 2009, Sciaky, Inc., a subsidiary of Phillips Service Industries, Inc. (PSI), first launched its innovative Electronic Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM) process for large-scale, high quality metal parts. While at first this 3D printing process was only open to companies like Lockheed Martin, DARPA, Boeing, and others that needed help in making prototype and production parts up to 19 feet long, the company’s EBAM machines became available to other large companies in 2014.
EBAM titanium pylon structure, which forms the main skeletal wing structure. [Image: Airbus]
Sciaky’s one-of-a-kind EBAM process offers the widest range of material options for large-scale metal applications, the largest build envelope for metal parts, and is a fast, cost-effective system for producing metal 3D printed parts.
Now, Sciaky has announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC), an independent, nonprofit, applied scientific research and development professional services organization, in order to support the quickly growing demand for large-scale, high quality 3D printed metal parts.
“Sciaky is excited to work with CTC and help educate its clients about the real-world benefits of EBAM technology,” said Scott Phillips, the President and CEO of Sciaky. “When compared to traditional forging methods, EBAM offers significant competitive advantages for customers all over the world by drastically reducing production time, waste, and costs associated with manufacturing large, high-value metal parts.”
CTC has spent 30 years working with metals and metal processing solutions. The company offers its clients the ability to design, develop, test, prototype, and build parts, and has provided metal solutions ranging from hybrid AM and laser powder bed fusion to cold spray, and now EBAM.
While it can take months to produce metal parts using large-scale forgings and castings, Sciaky’s EBAM process is able to 3D print large-scale, high quality structures out of metals like aluminum, nickel-based alloys, steel, titanium, and tantalum, up to 19′ long, in just days, without wasting a lot of material.
EBAM can be put to work in any production life cycle phase, all the way from rapid prototyping and making production parts to repair and re-manufacturing applications. The process also offers high scalability for part quality and size, and has a faster deposition rate than other technologies – by up to a factor of ten.
EBAM also features an exclusive dual wirefeed process, which is capable of feeding two different metal alloys into a single melt pool in order to produce parts made of custom alloys; this process also means that designers can create graded parts by varying alloy mixtures, or switching from thin wire (fine deposition) to thick wire (gross deposition) feedstock.
Thanks to this new strategic partnership, CTC will leverage Sciaky’s EBAM technology in order to provide its clients with large-scale, high quality metal 3D printed parts at a faster rate of speed than ever before.
“We are extremely pleased to announce this newly formed strategic partnership with Sciaky. We are grateful for this opportunity to collaborate with the talented team at Sciaky. Our clients will realize numerous benefits thanks to this arrangement,” said Edward J. Sheehan, Jr., CTC President and CEO.
What do you think of this news? Discuss this story, and other 3D printing topics, at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.
[Source: CTC]
