AMUG Newsletter September 2017

President’s Report

In 10 days, you will have the opportunity to grab a spot for the 2018 AMUG Conference, which will be a celebration of our 30^th anniversary. On October 1, we will open registration for the conference.

I encourage everyone to register as soon as possible. We have made every effort to have spots for all that wish to attend, but the growing interest in additive manufacturing and growing respect for AMUG may lead to a repeat from the 2017 conference – a sellout with no standing-room-only options. Since our last visit to St. Louis, the St. Louis Union Station (our conference venue) has gone through a renovation and expansion that allows us to welcome more attendees. However, we are expecting yet another record-breaking year, which could push attendance beyond capacity.

Way back in 1987, our organization hosted its first conference. It was a small gathering of early adopters of rapid prototyping, which we now call additive manufacturing. Over the past 30 years, the technology has become mainstream, the options have expanded and the applications have progressed beyond simple models. More individuals are doing more with the technology, often in surprising ways. It is the mission of AMUG to help you understand what you can do with “more.” It is my pleasure and honor to lead this group in the milestone year of its 30^th anniversary.

The board and our volunteers have been hard at work getting everything ready for October 1^st.  I cannot thank them enough for their efforts, and I think you will see the fruits of their labor starting with registration and continuing throughout the 2018 conference.

Join us for the 30^th AMUG Conference. Register at www.amug.com starting in October.

Travel Planning

We can’t wait to head back to St. Louis for the 2018 AMUG Conference in April. For those who attended the 2016 conference (also held in St. Louis), you understand why we are excited. Of course we are eager to experience everything the conference offers and the GREAT camaraderie of the AMUG family. The St. Louis experience adds a certain something that fuels our anticipation: the uniqueness of the Union Station Hotel, the great downtown restaurants and the sights, such as the St. Louis Arch and the Mississippi River. If you did not have a chance to venture out last time or this will be your first visit to St. Louis, plan on arriving a day or two early to sightsee, sample the culinary experiences of the unique restaurants and enjoy the St. Louis nightlife.

This year we are also instituting a “Minimum Stay” for the Union Station Hotel.  There will be a five-night minimum stay at Union Station so that we can maximize hotel room utilization, which helps to offset the food and beverage cost. Those who will be staying less than the five nights are asked to reserve their rooms at the Hilton Ballpark Hotel.  There will be free transportation from 6:00 am to 2:00 am daily between the two hotels.

The reservation systems for the AMUG Conference will open on October 1.

Downtown St. Louis

Call for Speakers and Workshop Trainers

2018 AMUG Conference – Call for Speakers is Open.

We continue to enhance and modify our tracks and hands-on workshop sessions to meet the needs of beginner and advanced additive manufacturing us­­ers. This year we will once again expand our track sessions and integrate topics throughout the Diamond and Platinum Sponsor sessions to build a more fluid and comprehensive experience for our attendees.

Please consider participating as a speaker or trainer. To submit an abstract or workshop program, contact the appropriate track leader listed below. The individual track leaders will review the objectives of your topic and respond with available speaking or workshop sessions that are appropriate. Each speaker will be required to submit an abstract to the AMUG Agenda Committee for final approval.

If you do not find an obvious track for your topic, please contact the AMUG Agenda Team at agenda@amug.com.

2018 Diamond Sponsor Receptions

The planning for the 2018 AMUG Conference is well underway, and once again we would like to offer our Diamond Sponsors the opportunity to host customer receptions. However, to keep everyone together during the conference, these receptions will be scheduled for Sunday, April 8, 2018, at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark between the hours of 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm.

The hotels will only accept meeting or event arrangements made through AMUG, so please coordinate your receptions through us. We will accept reception requests from October 1 through November 15. As in the past, AMUG will provide the venue at no cost, but all food and beverage, as well as AV, is to be covered by the sponsor.  Please respond to chairman@amug.com for additional information.

Volunteers – AMUG Needs You

AMUG is made possible year after year by a ton of volunteer help, both prior to and during the conference. To make the coming event a huge success, please consider volunteering your time for the 2018 AMUG Conference!

What does a volunteer do?

At the conference, there are several opportunities, such as helping with registration bag stuffing, moderating sessions, assisting in set up and tear down of the AMUGexpo and helping to staff the registration desk.

We also use the list of people that have raised their hand to volunteer to fill some of our positions on committees, like our nominating committee or marketing committee.

If you’ve already reached out to us in the past year, we will be getting back in touch with you soon with more specifics. If you’d like to offer your support as a volunteer, please email the AMUG Secretary, Kim Killoran, at secretary@amug.com.

Volunteers hard at work at 2017 conference.

BASF Acquires Filament Producer Innofil3D

Continuing with its focus on additive manufacturing, BASF acquired filament producer Innofil3D – headquartered in the Netherlands. Innofil3D is a leading producer of high-value, customized filaments that are used in fused filament fabrication. The Dutch company’s product range will add thermoplastic filaments for 3D printing to BASF’s portfolio.

“With this acquisition, BASF is moving one step further along the value chain,” said Volker Hammes, managing director of BASF 3D Printing Solutions. “Following the recently announced establishment of BASF 3D Printing Solutions, based in Heidelberg, Germany, this is another important step in strengthening our 3D business.”

To learn more, check out Innofil3D’s video or contact BASF at 3d-printing@basf.com.

Click to watch the video.

Aircraft Interiors Certification

Simplifying the Path to Airworthiness for Additively Manufactured Parts

Stratasys has long been a partner with the aerospace community, developing additive manufacturing solutions that help companies overcome challenges to achieve success. Stratasys has leveraged this experience to meet the challenge of certifying polymer-based 3D printed parts for aircraft installation.

To that end, Stratasys is developing the Aircraft Interiors Certification Solution, which enables a faster, simpler path for producing additively manufactured parts for certified aircraft. The multi-part solution includes the Aircraft Interiors Configuration Fortus 900mc Production System, material and process specifications, and design allowables for certified ULTEM 9085 resin material.

The design allowables dataset is currently being developed by the National Center for Advanced Materials Performance (NCAMP), with FAA oversight. Stratasys certified ULTEM 9085 resin filament is manufactured with full traceability to the raw material, documented with certificates of analysis and conformance. The specially configured Fortus 900mc provides consistent, reliable material properties and build results necessary to demonstrate equivalency to the design allowables dataset.

The Aircraft Interiors Certification Solution is anticipated for release in Q4.

For more, visit stratasys.com for the detailed Aircraft Interiors Certification Solution Guide.

Aircraft Interiors Certification Solution supports efficient path to aircraft parts.

HP and Deloitte Announce Alliance to Accelerate Digital Transformation of Global Manufacturing Industry

HP Inc. and Deloitte announced a first-of-its-kind alliance that will accelerate the digital transformation of the global manufacturing industry, estimated to be $12 trillion annually. The two companies will collaborate on the implementation of HP’s 3D printing systems in large-scale manufacturing environments, applying their unrivaled digital operations experience to help enterprises accelerate product design and production, create more flexible manufacturing and supply chains, and optimize efficiency across the manufacturing lifecycle. This will help increase innovation, accelerate time-to-market, reduce costs and waste, and help large enterprises compete more effectively in today’s dynamic global economy.

Learn more here.

HP president and CEO Dion Weisler (left) and Deloitte global CEO Punit Renjen.

Carbon Solves 3 Main Challenges of Manufactured Textured Parts

Textures play a vital role in how humans interact with products. A recent white paper from Carbon explains the three main challenges that product development teams face when manufacturing textured injection molded parts.  Carbon highlights how it is helping companies create differentiated products by:

• Texturing curved surfaces
• Achieving unmoldable textures
• Enabling textures at every stage of product development cycle

Product development teams across industry verticals will appreciate the advantages of adopting Carbon’s end-to-end digital texturing approach. Carbon’s Digital Light Synthesis™ technology and unprecedented software capabilities are enabling a paradigm shift, offering design freedom, quick design iterations and a broad range of tunable Carbon textures. The white paper also highlights the economic benefits of adopting Carbon’s solution by eliminating expensive retooling, improving time-to-market, and reducing labor costs for post-processing.

Read the full white paper Solving 3 challenges of textured parts to learn more.

Part showing complex undercut capability using Carbon’s technology to create functional textures.

Somos® is Driving Speed to Market and Heading to the TCT Show

When Yazaki, a global leader in manufacturing automotive parts, first came across Somos EvoLVe 128, they were excited to try it in their equipment, and the results were remarkable. Yazaki has seen 20% faster production with better capacity and ease of use, which has prompted Yazaki to say “Somos EvoLVe 128 is one of the best, all-purpose SLA material that we’ve seen.”

Read more on how Somos EvoLVe 128 can help in your next project.

Also, if you’re making the trip out to Birmingham, UK, for the TCT Show, make sure to stop by our stand — C44 — to learn more about our latest material, Somos Taurus. Our new sales manager for Europe, Martine van der Ent, will be participating in the panel discussion “#3DTalk – Materials – A Driver In Advancing AM” on Tuesday, September 26th at 15:15. Brigitte Jacobs, applications development specialist, will be giving a presentation on “3D Printed Molds with Somos” on Thursday, September 28 (13:00-13:20). We hope to see you at the show!

Yazaki has seen 20% faster production with EvoLVe 128.

Webinar with SLM Solutions

Join SLM Solutions, the International Aircraft Engine Association and Michigan State University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering for a special webinar discussing the additive manufacturing revolution in the aerospace sector! Join the discussion of the advantages of metal additive manufacturing and how companies can use it to reduce production times, optimize components and gain a competitive advantage. Register today for the webinar to take place on November 1^st at 2:00 pm EDT (11:00 am PDT).

Register Today!

New Arrival: EOS Stainless Steel 17-4PH Industry Line

EOS is proud to announce EOS StainlessSteel 17-4PH IndustryLine, raising the bar in additive manufacturing industrial and quality standards.

EOS StainlessSteel 17-4PH IndustryLine consists of an iron-based metal alloy powder and a specially developed process parameter for manufacturing on the EOS M 290 metal system. Ideal for manufacturing surgical and orthopedic instruments, the material is high-strength, easily curable, and highly corrosion- and acid-resistant. Thanks to the unique process parameter, reliable data and reproducible part quality can ensure development and manufacturing processes are efficient, cost effective and capable of accelerating time-to-market.

Click here to read the full press release.

EOS StainlessSteel 17-4PH IndustryLine is ideal of medical instruments.

TCT Show 2017 is Here

September is the month of TCT Show, and there’s still time to register to attend a jam-packed show floor with innovations and talks aplenty. If you’re not able to attend this year’s event, you can keep up-to-date with all the goings-on over at www.tctmagazine.com where we’ll be posting news, reviews and interviews as they happen.

There’s also the “little matter” of the inaugural TCT Awards taking place on the evening of Wednesday, September 27; follow us on our social media channels for live reporting of the winners.

An engaged audience at TCT Show.

HP Steps into Custom Footwear with 3D Printing, Scanning

HP has announced its new FitStation technology for the creation of custom footwear products, but how does the company stack up in an increasingly populated field? HP will have to prove itself against such competitors as startups like Wiivv Wearables and Feetz, as well as stalwarts like Under Armour, Nike, Adidas and New Balance. This article breaks down the 3D-printed footwear race in the context of HP’s recent news.

Read the story here.

3D scanning of the foot, part of the FitStation, powered by HP. (Image courtesy of HP.)

The Inspection and Quality Control of Metal AM Parts with X-ray Computed Tomography (micro CT)

Read the special report in Metal AM magazine’s free-to-download Summer 2017 edition.

X-ray Computed Tomography (micro CT) is just one option for the inspection of metal AM parts. Other options include using eddy current, ultrasonic technology, white-light interferometry and non-interferometric optics. However, recent developments show that it is this technology that has the most potential in view of its unique capability for the inspection of complex internal structures and geometries without destroying the part.

In a special report for Metal Additive Manufacturing magazine, the capabilities of this inspection method are presented by Andrew Ramsey and Herminso Villarraga-Gomez of Nikon Metrology Inc.

Download Metal AM magazine from here.

Scans can reveal external and internal features.

Additive Manufacturing Conference Features Users Succeeding With AM

Adam Clark of Tangible Solutions (in photo at left) is working to apply additive manufacturing for medical component production. Jarod Rauch of tool-and-die maker B&J Specialty (in photo at right) is using AM to realize conformal cooling of molds. Both will be speakers at this year’s Additive Manufacturing Conference, along with speakers from other successful AM users such as John Deere, NASA, TE Connectivity and Virgin Orbit.

Happening October 10-12 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the AM Conference is an annual event focused on industrial applications of 3D printing. Nearly 30 expert speakers will present on various aspects of additive manufacturing technology and its applications. Among the organizations giving presentations, three of them—Local Motors and Volunteer Aerospace, as well as Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility—will also offer tours as part of the event.

Learn more and register to attend on the AM Conference website.

Adam Clark (left) and Jarod Rauch to speak at Additive Manufacturing Conference.

DEVELOP3D LIVE | Boston | 23 – 24 October

To celebrate the announcement of our 2017 US event, DEVELOP3D is offering the AMUG Family half-price tickets for DEVELOP3D LIVE Boston on October 23 – 24.

Taking place for the second time in the USA, the two-day event will look at innovative design-to-fabrication processes, from concept all the way to manufacture, featuring talks from experienced industry heads and cutting-edge upstarts – including 3D printing, topology optimization and simulation software.

Use the code – AMUGVIP – at registration to purchase your tickets at the special rate of $25. Get yours now!

6 Steps for Adopting Quality-Controlled Metal Additive Manufacturing

Featured in the latest issue of 3D Metal Printing magazine: an article from EOS detailing a six-step production process designed to help manufacturers troubleshoot, minimize risk, overcome challenges and, ultimately, deliver high-quality and cost-efficient results.

The first phase involves feedstock inspection of the powders in use. Next comes exporting the design data from CAD to STL, following design-for-AM guidelines. Critical is determining shape, size and surface quality of the finished product. If the resolution is too high or too low, surface quality will suffer. Then it’s on to build preparation, where ensuring quality requires consideration of the quantity and weight of the support structures used. “Often, when manufacturers try to additively manufacture legacy parts, they will be oriented at an angle that requires heavy support structures,” says the article. “These AM parts will require additional post-processing to achieve good surface quality.”

Here’s the full article.

From left to right, these images depict low-, fine- and very-fine resolution CAD–STL exports.