Articles
Q: Tell us about the history of the company. How did you get involved in rapid prototyping?
A: The original company was a mechanical engineering company doing CNC machining of motorsport parts and mechanical equipment. Then when in 1996 I started to work inside the company, together with my father, we decided to explore new technologies, and at that time we identified selective laser sintering technology as an interesting technology for our job. We did a lot of jobs in the past using wind tunnel models for Formula One but it was very difficult to make the parts from solid: the wind tunnel model is a scale model so the parts are very small, and so it was very difficult and very expensive to prepare the right part for the wind tunnel machining a solid with CNC. So we decided to investigate the possibility of using SLS as an interesting technology for this purpose.
Q: Did you buy in SLS machines at that point?
A: Yes, in 1996 we bought the first Sinterstation 2000 and it was one of the first laser sintering machines in Italy at this time. We were early and a pioneer in this field. It's very important to underline that we wanted to push the technology to its limit. We wanted to use them for functional models, not just aesthetic models and we needed to work on the materials side – generating new materials with the right mechanical performance for this sector.
Q: And you started developing your own materials?
Q: Yes. We developed a material called Windform with the aim of making a material suitable for making the wind tunnel models. Now as you know we have developed a wide range of materials under this name and there are materials suitable for not only the wind tunnel but a wide range of other applications.
Q: What can some of those materials do?
A: Now we have a range of materials – some of which can be used to build functional parts. So now the main business for us is not wind tunnel models but car parts for sportscars or motorsport, because with this new material, the mechanical properties are high, so it's possible to prepare functional parts. So we are talking about rapid manufacturing, not only rapid prototyping. [Materials at CRP typically have a polymer base and are reinforced with glass or carbon fibre].
Q: What do you think the next technological breakthrough in rapid manufacturing is likely to be? Will it be in terms of materials or in terms of the process itself?
A: I think that we have to split this into two parts. With plastic and polymer parts, selective laser sintering with innovative materials could be a very interesting possibility for this market because we are always investing in new machines, bigger machines with higher productivity – with these machines we can serve a lot of new markets. It's for small lot production, and in this case we are talking about production, not only prototyping.
On the metals side, the interesting technologies are selective laser melting or direct metal laser sintering and electron beam melting.These are very promising and I think these are also the ones we will see soon on the market. They can be used for aluminium alloys, for example; the only limit on these technologies is the dimension of parts they can do, and the speed of these machines. But I know that manufacturers are working hard to break through these limits.
Q: You can now buy desktop 3D printers for the home. Do you think this is every likely to take off for the domestic market?
A: I think the home printers are good for educational purposes or just making aesthetic parts – to see a part quickly, but without the possibility of using it: the materials are very, very poor and the dimensional stability and accuracy of the parts that you can produce with home printers is poor. They are promoting ALM or 3D printing but they have a lot of limits. The future still resides with professional printers.
Q: Do you see those professional printers making more and more inroads into mainstream manufacturing?
A: Absolutely. I think you can see that already when companies such as Airbus, which requires the highest standards of quality, is using additive layer manufacturing to produce parts. I think for special projects where custom manufacturing is required, the future can be driven by professional 3D printers.