Additive Manufacturing and Cost per Kilogram
How much is weight savings worth to you? Additive is being embraced in applications where the answer to that question is high.
Where will the adoption of additive manufacturing advance as the price of using it comes down? One of the key advantages additive manufacturing delivers is weight reduction—growing parts with organic forms that maximize the strength-to-weight ratio by employing only the amount of material needed. In a presentation given by Stefan Ritt of additive manufacturing machine maker SLM Solutions (at the most recent AMUG Conference), Mr. Ritt noted the different costs that different industries are willing to pay for weight reduction:
- Satellite and spacecraft: $10,000 per kg of weight reduction
- Aircraft: $1,000 per kg of weight reduction
- Automobile: $10 per kg of weight reduction
He actually gave the figures in euros, but the approximations are loose enough that either currency works. The order of magnitude is what matters. The numbers make clear why additive manufacturing is already being embraced for both space-related and aircraft manufacturing. But in the automotive industry, even though a key topic is lightweighting, additive likely still has to make significant price and efficiency gains before it could be embraced.
(Still, to extrapolate along this line of vehicles, it is worth noting that weight savings is already the reason why one bike manufacturer has turned to additive.)
Related Content
-
Beehive Industries Is Going Big on Small-Scale Engines Made Through Additive Manufacturing
Backed by decades of experience in both aviation and additive, the company is now laser-focused on a single goal: developing, proving and scaling production of engines providing 5,000 lbs of thrust or less.
-
DMG MORI: Build Plate “Pucks” Cut Postprocessing Time by 80%
For spinal implants and other small 3D printed parts made through laser powder bed fusion, separate clampable units resting within the build plate provide for easy transfer to a CNC lathe.
-
3D Printing with Plastic Pellets – What You Need to Know
A few 3D printers today are capable of working directly with resin pellets for feedstock. That brings extreme flexibility in material options, but also requires greater knowledge of how to best process any given resin. Here’s how FGF machine maker JuggerBot 3D addresses both the printing technology and the process know-how.
