SLM Solutions & Honeywell Qualify Materials, Accelerate 3D Printing Rate

SLM Solutions, headquartered in Germany (with offices in France, Italy, Russia, India, China, Singapore and the US), works with a network of partners around the world. Now, they are announcing a collaboration with Honeywell for qualifying new additive manufacturing technology—along with solving a common issue as they reduce printing times.

Charlotte, NC-based Honeywell is known for its level of expertise in 3D printing and additive manufacturing, with a team that possesses enormous knowledge about the technology—spanning numerous platforms and applications. During this partnership, both SLM and Honeywell are on a mission to refine all the classic benefits of 3D printing further in enabling increased thickness in layers, reducing print times, and reducing cost overall.

In a recent press release sent to 3DPrint.com, the companies outlined their plans, beginning with the fabrication of aluminum builds with intended layer thicknesses of 60 and 90 micron on the SLM ® 500.

 “SLM Solutions’ latest technology will help Honeywell improve productivity while also meeting our material requirements for qualification,” said Dr. Sören Wiener, senior director of technology and advanced operations for Honeywell’s Aerospace business. “We intend to qualify these parameter sets through repeatability testing in our production environment, including build and post-processing to generate an efficient process with a set of material property data.”

During this project, SLM Solutions will be contributing standard aluminum parameter sets as the Honeywell team moves forward in qualifying materials using the quad-laser systems. SLM is recognized for AM systems that are reliable, offer users the ability to complete fast turnaround in production—and affordably—while manufacturing dense metal parts with complex geometries. Both teams intend to achieve high optimization of material properties.

“As the productivity leaders in powder bed fusion, SLM Solutions has been continuously working to reduce build times by combining high-powered lasers with advanced parameter sets. Our open architecture machines allow for customization, and we’ve shown over 60 percent reduction in build time with 170 percent real build rate increases compared to standard 30-micron parameters on our twin-laser machines. We’re excited to work together with Honeywell Aerospace to further advance the industry through the qualification of even more advanced parameter sets for quad-laser systems used in qualified serial production.”

The team at SLM continues to work on offering fast, better production processes for customers, along with sharing knowledge, offering support, and focusing on long-term success for everyone involved. They also continue to be a dynamic force around the world, collaborating with other industry leaders in 3D printing like XYZprinting as well as working with customers like Rolls Royce, refining components for aerospace applications—and partnering with other companies to accelerate the creation of new manufacturing platforms.

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[Source / Images: SLM Solutions]