Ford helpers in the consequent development insubordination by 3D-printing amounts to personify origination machines. 3D imitation advances excellence in Road automobiles by as elongated as arranges more time and self-determination to improve and examination portions. Ford’s 500,000th published automobile part is an example locomotive protection for the all-new Ford Mustang. The subsequent stages in Ford’s 3D printing policy are automobile manufacturing originals – mixed substantial submissions, continuous 3D sand printing and shortest metallic printing. 3D printing expertise is manufacture that day come preferably at Ford Motor Firm. The development of the locomotive camouflage for the all-new Ford Mustang is the extreme current sample of the use of this knowledge.
Ford uses 3D printing to quickly produce prototype parts, shaving months off the development time for individual components used in all of its vehicles, such as cylinder heads, intake manifolds and air vents.
With traditional methods, an engineer would create a computer model of an intake manifold – the most complicated engine part – and wait about four months for one prototype at a cost of $500,000. With 3D printing, Ford can print the same part in four days, including multiple iterations and with no tooling limits – at a cost of $3,000.
“For the customer, this means better quality products that also can be weight-optimized to help improve fuel efficiency,” explains Paul Susalla, Ford section supervisor of rapid manufacturing.
“Today, 3D printing is not fast enough for the high-volume direct production manufacturing we do,” said Harold Sears, Ford additive manufacturing technical specialist. “But it is ideal for test parts, or niche production applications, that go through frequent development changes.”
Ford has been at the forefront of 3D printing for 25 years and was involved with the invention of 3D printing in the 1980s. In 1988, Ford purchased the third 3D printer ever made. Today, Ford uses selective laser sintering, fused deposition modeling and stereolithography 3D printing applications. Ford also works with suppliers to bring more technologies to market, including 3D sand printing.
