West Australian trailblazer Aurora Labs continues to prove the ability of its proprietary 3D printing technology to deliver the goods for industries looking to produce replacement parts quickly.
The company has used its Multilevel Concurrent Printing, or “MCP”, technology to print a series of 10mm high, titanium hexagon parts in just 20 minutes.
Management said this is another example of the technology’s ability to manufacture complex shapes at high speed.
Aurora’s MCP technology promises to supercharge production times by printing multiple layers of metal 3D parts in a single pass.
In February, the company’s “Alpha” machine managed to achieve print speeds of about 113kg per day using a single modular sub-unit.
Aurora said that this is a massive 55 times faster than the general market speed for 3D printing which currently sits at around 1.96kg per day for titanium printing.
This speed could potentially be scaled up to a one tonne per day, which could potentially be the key to convincing major oil, gas, mining and other large industrials to switch their spare parts purchases from traditional wholesale distributors to an onsite “do it yourself” 3D printing operation.
Rather than relying on replacement parts that typically have high costs and long lead times, companies could quickly produce parts using high speed, high quality, 3D metal printing.
Managing Director David Budge said: “This outcome will give our partners and future customers confidence that we have an additive manufacturing solution that can deliver the Holy Grail of rapid 3D printing, which is looking to revolutionise the production of parts in a whole range of applications.”
Separately, the company has also completed printed a high-density aluminium part with a density of around 99%.
Mr Budge said: “This is an early stage result and we are expecting to achieve further significant manufacturing improvements.”
“Aluminium is in high demand for a range of high-value applications such as the Automotive, Aerospace and Heat Exchanger industries where consistent quality and meeting tight specifications is required.”
Meanwhile, Aurora’s equal joint venture with WorleyParsons, AdditiveNow, has started operations.
The JV aims to provide a complete additive manufacturing service to clients that are primarily in the oil and gas, mining and major infrastructure sectors.
