Metal additive manufacturing
Metal additive manufacturing is a technology that allows the printing of metal parts: prototype or “finished” part. It is a technology that is currently used in many advanced sectors such as medical, military and aeronautics. Like “standard” additive manufacturing, it allows users and manufacturers to develop products efficiently and quickly while exponentially reducing development costs. Metal 3d printing technologies are relatively numerous on a fast growing market: Fusion Depot Molding (FDM), Powder Bed Fusion (SLM/DMLS), Binder Jetting…
The Fabricar3v project starts from the fact that today the current technologies have allowed this industrial revolution and they require today very important expertise and investments (~1M EUR), which blocks their adoption. However, new methods such as indirect metal additive manufacturing and “MIM-like” technologies (Metal Injection Molding) do not require such an investment and allow the advent of much less expensive machines (120 to 160k EUR).
We believe that this technology is bound to develop and thus we wish to set up a scientific and industrial pole of excellence dedicated to this technology. The technology developed within the framework of Fabricar3v is based on the FDM printing process and differs from what is done by industrialists by using granules as raw material. The main reason for choosing this technology is that FDM metal additive manufacturing from wires creates a strong dependence on suppliers for supply and does not allow the exploration of new materials while the use of MIM granules offers a larger catalog of materials at lower cost.