Video: Controlled Porosity Can Be Functional Advantage Realized via 3D Printing
A wall of metal that looks solid is actually 90% dense, allowing gas to pass through. Mold venting is one application.
Additive manufacturing (AM) makes it possible to realize geometric features no other process can produce. The video below shows an example: A wall of metal that looks solid from a distance, but is actually just 90% dense, allowing gas to pass through it. Mold venting is one application.
Transcript
In this mold component, this drilled hole doesn’t go all the way through, but the air escapes anyway. It escapes because this was made additively. It was made on this machine, from Matsuura-powder-bed additive machine – metal additive specifically for injection mold tooling. And by controlling the parameters of the build only in this spot, the metal was made to be 90% dense. That means it’s a little porous, just porous enough so that the air can escape. The result is a solution enabled by additive for mold venting.
Matsuura customers are seeing the value that comes with implementing additive manufacturing technology.
With multiple customer case studies, all showing 25% to 45% reductions in cycle time reductions, the Matsuura LUMEX Technology is transformative in the industry.
Matsuura’s LUMEX Technology relies on one-machine, one-process manufacturing of complex molds and parts by fusing metal laser sintering technology with high speed milling technology. The Hybrid technology creates a “finished” part with machined surface finish and accuracy, without inducing the additional variation caused by multiple machine set-ups and part handling.
Many mold manufacturers have successfully implemented additive manufacturing technology, but none quite so well as Minnesota-based Custom Mold & Design (CMD). CMD focuses on finding creative ways to solve complex problems and AM, specifically hybrid machine technology to produce conformal-cooled inserts, is how they believe they can take advantage of additive technology to make better molds for customers.
Read about Custom Mold & Design’s tremendous success with the Matsuura LUMEX Avance-25 in a whitepaper they developed: HERE.
Matsuura Machinery USA, Inc., located in St. Paul, MN is the U.S. subsidiary of Matsuura Machinery Corporation in Japan. Since 1935, Matsuura has been the forerunner in designing innovative technology and manufacturing solutions to a variety of industries around the globe. Matsuura Machinery USA, Inc. delivers unmatched excellence in 5-axis, vertical, horizontal, linear motor, multi-tasking CNC machine tools and machines with a powder bed metal AM platform with machining capability. Matsuura Machinery USA, Inc. provides the service, applications and technical field support that have always been the Matsuura standard for business. For more information on Matsuura LUMEX products, contact: [email protected] or visit: www.matsuurausa.com.