Engineering news
Audi has entered a development partnership with high-end additive manufacturing company EOS.
The partnership will see EOS help the car manufacturer implement industrial additive manufacturing (AM) printing technology and support the development of a corresponding 3D printing centre in Ingolstadt, Germany, where Audi is based.
Güngör Kara, director of global application and consulting, said: “The aim is to not only supply Audi with the right additive systems and processes but to also support them during applications development, when building up internal AM knowledge and training their engineers to become in-house AM experts.”
Audi already works closely with EOS and industrial 3D printing has been applied to equipment and prototype building at Audi. The company has also set up its own competence centre for 3D printing in order to gain experience with the materials and the process, and to further develop them for series production.
The car manufacturer said that 3D printing can “revolutionise the process of tool manufacturing” and will be able to create much more complex geometry and assemblies that are not possible with conventional manufacturing methods.
Jörg Spindler, head of toolmaking at Audi, said: “A close cooperation with AM solution providers such as EOS, who can support innovation in technology development, is essential for these aims. With this technology, we are able to integrate internal structures and functions in tools that we have not been able to create so far with conventional manufacturing methods. Especially with components in small batches, we can now produce components using lightweight construction, quickly and economically based on this technology.”
Audi will also focus on the production of inserts for die casting molds and hot working segments. The company said it can positively influence the process of series production by conformal cooling, producing parts and vehicle components more cost-effectively. This is made possible by using complex, additively manufactured cooling channels, which are tailored to the component and could not be implemented conventionally before. Specifically, the optimised cooling performance leads to a reduction of the cycle time by 20%, which reduces the energy consumption and cost efficiency of the components.
Dr. Stefan Bindl, team manager at the Innovation Centre at the EOS consulting division Additive Minds, said: “The close cooperation concerning application and process development as well as internal knowledge building makes a significant contribution, which is why Audi can quickly achieve substantial effects for their own business by applying our technology.”