MacLean-Fogg & Fraunhofer ILT Make 156 Kg 3D Printed Toyota Tooling Insert

Fastener & tooling firm MacLean-Fogg Company and Fraunhofer ILT have created a 156 kg conformally cooled die casting insert, made out of the firm’s own L-40 tool steel powder. This L-40 powder has been made to reduce cracking, and is hard and tough, with a 48 HRC hardness and a tensile strength of 1420 MPa. The powder has a lower amount of nickel than others, and no cobalt.

The die casting insert was made for Toyota Motor Europe and will be a transmission housing tool for production of the Toyota Yaris. Measuring 515 x 485 x 206 mm, the tool has been designed to work for significantly longer than conventionally manufactured tools. The printer used is a five-laser LPBF machine that was developed by Fraunhofer ILT, which has a build volume of 1000 x 800 x 350 mm.

Toyota’s Dr. Magdalena Coventry and Dr. Andrew Willett said in concert,

“Gantry printing with L-40 tool steel powder material, a promising avenue towards scalable additive manufacturing, is opening the potential for metal 3D printing to reduce lead times and to realize more responsive manufacturing— in particular while delivering world-class insert performance, longer maintenance intervals, and cost-effective pricing structure. We are thrilled to be at the forefront of innovations in the rapidly developing universe of additive manufacturing.”

“Toyota posed a thrilling challenge by requesting to expand the application of L-40 to large-format tooling inserts. We had to overcome scale-up challenges such as ensuring consistent gas flow conditions as build sizes grew,” MacLean-Fogg’s Dr. Harald Lemke stated.

“This project proves that it’s possible to produce large, complex and highly durable inserts technically and gives clear miles stones to reach to be economically attractive. Additive manufacturing is ready to take on real industrial scale challenges. For OEMs, this is a game changer: shorter lead times, longer tool life and flexibility in tool design.”

With a lot of automakers looking at gigacasting and much larger cast parts generally, this advancement is sure to garner a lot of interest. Conformal cooling has decided advantages, but in large tools, making the tool is complex and time-consuming. Failures are costly and can occur late in the game, while lead times are long. But here, Fraunhofer ILT says that, “The cooling channels can be optimally adapted to the thermally highly stressed zones of the tool. This lowers local temperature peaks, reduces thermomechanical wear and significantly extends the service life of the mold.” With such large and complex tools, a reduction in lead time coupled with longer service life really starts to pay off rather quickly.

Toyota has made over 10 million Yaris cars to date and says that in Europe, the model is responsible for a third of its output. The Yaris is partially engineered and designed in Europe as well, at its ED² facility. Built mainly in Valenciennes, France, the car is a truly global one, with other engineering and production happening in Japan. Its great to see that Toyota Motor Europe is allowed to lead this improvement as well. In a lot of other companies, a major experimental tooling overhaul like this would be a strictly headquarters thing.

It’s also important to see how a fastener and machining company can innovate and surpass existing market entrants. We have one hundred firms offering the same bog standard Ti powder. Few have a reputation of high quality, and these often sell a lot of the same powders. The slightest whiff of a trend and everyone will scramble for the latest fashion in copper. But, to truly make an application-specific powder that makes more possible is not something powder companies usually do. Application-specific materials are the future. More profitable, defensible, and a better business overall, MacLean-Fogg is showing us what a lot of firms should have been doing for decades.