DP Technology Announces Release of ESPRIT, Featuring DED Cycles

While industrial users continue to enjoy the benefits of additive manufacturing processes around the world, many still continue to lean on conventional and subtractive techniques or employ a mixture of both in the manufacturer’s setting. Methods like directed energy deposition (DED) are a source of growing interest—and use—in many settings where critical parts are being produced.

Parts such as turbine blades, drill heads, and propellers are expected to be extremely high performance and durable, leading to the use of DED in applications like aerospace, hybrid processes geared toward automotive, mining, and power generation, and refinements in medical manufacturing of items like implants. DED is powerful due to the use of focused energy sources like a laser or electron beam, melting the materials being used. Control of grain structure makes DED attractive for use in creating or rebuilding large parts that may be much more expensive to produce traditionally.

Hybrid manufacturing is possible with DED also, as it can be integrated into CNC processes with a deposition nozzle mounted on a multi-axis machining system for faster production of metal parts that are also more flexible. As demand continues to grow industrially, companies like California-based DP Technology are working with well-known manufacturers for validation of new additive cycles in their processes. DP Technology has also just announced the release of ESPRIT, featuring DED cycles with 3-axis, 4-axis, and 5-axis DED support.

DED 3+2.This 3-axis DED cycle is used for builds where the workpiece may be oriented in 5-axis, then built layer-by-layer using a 3-axis process.

Rotary DED has the same capabilities as 3+2 with the addition of allowing deposition while simultaneously rotating the workpiece around an axis.

5-axis DED is used when the part must be tilted dynamically while material is being added.

“ESPRIT’s additive capabilities are the product of the team’s more than 35 years of experience in toolpath generations, and they include the same intuitive user interface that users expect from the software,” states DP Technology in a recent press release sent to 3DPrint.com.

“Combined with the subtractive processes and embedded into a single software, DP Technology brings a full spectrum of support to hybrid manufacturing. ESPRIT’s additive DED cycles include additive simulation and verification, as well as global support from ESPRIT’s technical teams.”

DP Technology has been working with other industry machine manufacturers, as well as learning institutions, to validate the post processor. Users can look forward to a comprehensive solution, “from CAD file to the finished part.”

“For more than a decade, we’ve been working on additive manufacturing, including research on DED toolpath trajectories and AM thermal simulation. ESPRIT’s additive DED solution is the result of the close collaboration between DP Technology, the industry’s most trusted CAM solution provider, and Grenoble University, the world’s leading research institution on additive DED technology,” says Frederic Vignat, head of the additive department at Grenoble University in France.

ESPRIT provides a natural workflow for programming direct energy deposition machines. The machines may be dedicated additive machines or hybrid additive machines that also perform traditional subtractive machining.

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