The need for new additive manufacturing technology
Although additive manufacturing technologies have been around for a long time, their application
in industrial production is quite limited.
We developed Versatile Thermoplastics Particle Manufacturing (VTPM) technology to solve this problem.
In order to understand the problem and the solution, we first need to take a broader look at
manufacturing in general.
Today’s manufacturing scene
One of the main tasks of any industrial production is to create objects (basic elements such as parts) from which products can be assembled.
These objects must meet the following requirements:
- Have the required shape.
- Have the necessary physical and chemical properties.
In order to obtain the required properties, different materials are used. Therefore, one of the main technical challenges of industrial production is:
Manufacturing of objects of the required geometric shape and quality from a wide range of materials.
In accomplishing this, the economic aspects of production are governed by a combination of three parameters: price, quality, and speed. Ideal production would be a high quality product produced very quickly at low cost. One has to strike a balance between these three.
Today, there are four main methods of manufacturing objects or parts:
Which method or combination of methods is chosen depends on the task at hand and takes into consideration the three parameters: price, quality, speed.
Analysis of additive manufacturing technologies
First, we analyzed the methods used in additive manufacturing. There are many types of additive manufacturing technologies. The main ones are:
Powder additive technologies: an object is created by adding material in powder form to the work area and performing actions with it - bonding, fusion or compaction.
Photopolymer additive technologies (photo-polymerization) - an object is built up by selectively exposing layers of light-sensitive resin to UV light. The liquid resin cures and hardens.
Additive technologies based on extrusion of thermoplastics – creation of an object takes place by extruding the material through the extruder nozzle and depositing it layer by layer.
Each method has its uses and limitations. Additive manufacturing technologies based on
thermoplastic extrusion seemed the most suitable for solving the main problems of industrial
production.
The two main methods of thermoplastic extrusion in use are FDM and FGF (explained below). However,
neither of these methods is able to fully meet the requirements of industry.
FDM™ - Fused Deposition Modeling is a proprietary additive technology based on the extrusion of polymer-containing material melts in the form of filaments or bars.
FGF (FGM) - Fused Granular Fabrication (Fused Granular Manufacturing) – additive manufacturing technology consisting of layer-by-layer deposition of melted granular polymer materials.
The limitations of FDM include the narrow range and high cost of materials available in filament
form, and slow printing speeds.
The limitations of FGF include poorer quality of product and lower resolution of printing.
Therefore there was a clear need for new technology that would overcome these limitations.
Learn more about current industry scene.
We discovered that such a technology was under development under the name of Versatile Thermoplastics Particle Manufacturing (VTPM) and were able to obtain exclusive rights to adapt it for the North American market and set up distribution networks. VTPM bridges the gap between the capabilities of existing additive manufacturing technologies and the challenges and requirements of industry.
ecosystem
AnyForm 3DWare is part of a carefully developed ecosystem which includes all the brands below.
