Highlights from the RAPID + TCT Show Floor: Day 1

Engineering.com was on the scene at North America’s most prominent 3D printing event.

Eyeglass frames made from beans. Electronics embedded within dense blocks of metal. Wooden artifacts, realistically portraying a tree’s grain structure, built out of sawdust.

These innovations and many more were on display this year at RAPID + TCT, which was held from May 17-19 at Huntington Place in Detroit. Back in full force after a pandemic that long refused to end, the event was abuzz with over 400 exhibitors showing off their latest developments in 3D printing technologies, materials and processes.

A skeleton sports a pair of bean-based sunglasses at the Materialise booth. (Image courtesy of Sana Kazilbash.)

A skeleton sports a pair of bean-based sunglasses at the Materialise booth. (Image courtesy of Sana Kazilbash.)

Engineering.com was on the ground to catch up with 3D printing leaders and explore additive manufacturing’s newest offerings. The following are just a few of the main highlights from this year’s event floor.

Desktop Metal

With all the acquisitions that Desktop Metal has made in recent years, it was no surprise that the 3D printing behemoth came in with some of the most wide-ranging exhibits at RAPID + TCT. Over 300 3D-printed production parts were on display at the booth, with applications including metal, polymer, elastomer, ceramic, composite, and upcycled wood.

The company publicly debuted its Production System P-1, a lab-scale printer representing a smaller version of the P-50, long-awaited since the printer’s launch in 2020. The P-1 shares the same Single Pass Jetting technology as the P-50 and is just as fast.

“Many customers who approached us said they needed something smaller to start on,” shared Jonah Myerberg, Desktop Metal CTO, while providing a booth tour to engineering.com. “They wanted to get their feet wet with developing materials, developing processes, and even developing parts designed for additive.”

The P-1 Production System. (Image courtesy of Desktop Metal.)

The P-1 Production System. (Image courtesy of Desktop Metal.)

Another printing platform that had its first showing at RAPID + TCT this year was the ExOne S-Max Flex robotic sand printer. Through a combination of technologies from ExOne, EnvisionTEC and Desktop Metal, the system uses a robot with a print head to create sand cast molds for foundries. According to Desktop Metal, the technology is capable of producing consolidated parts featuring more complicated geometries, undercuts and channels that are otherwise impossible to die cast without being split up into multiple parts.

“This is going to change the industry because it’s so cost-effective; it’s a fraction of the cost of standard sand printers,” said Myerberg. “Instead of creating analog metal castings that sit on the shelf and are stored, we created an agnostic printer that can print any casting in small or large volumes. You’re essentially digitizing the entire manufacturing process around aluminum die casting. Tool-less manufacturing—that’s where the industry’s going.”

(Image courtesy of Desktop Metal.)

(Image courtesy of Desktop Metal.)

There were even more printing platforms on display at the booth: the Desktop Metal Shop System, the Desktop Health Einstein printer for dental professionals, and the ETEC Xtreme 8K photopolymer printer. The latter can print Desktop Metal’s newly launched DuraChain photopolymers, which use a new methodology called Photo Polymerization-Induced Phase Separation (PIPS) to obtain the properties of a two-part material without having to deal with keeping both parts separate until a mixing head is reached. Developed by Adaptive3D—acquired by Desktop Metal last year—the process uses digital light processing (DLP) to illuminate DuraChain’s two-in-one photopolymers, inducing phase separation at the nano level to create a material with advanced mechanical, electrical and thermal properties.

Jabil Additive

Speaking of materials, Jabil Additive was excited to announce their new patent-pending polyketone (PK) 5000 material at RAPID + TCT. The first ever polyketone to be available for additive manufacturing, PK 5000 is being positioned as an alternative for powder-based platforms. According to Luke Rodgers, Senior Director of R&D at Jabil Additive, the material is quite a bit tougher than the popular polyamide 12 (PA 12) in terms of physical properties and temperature resistances.

“The next area which is really unique for additive manufacturing is that [PK 5000] has the lubricity, machinability, and abrasion resistance of a [polyoxymethylene] (POM) or acetal-type polymer,” added Rodgers. “The majority of POM-type products are put into stock shapes that are then CNC’d. This is the first time we’ve got an equivalent lubricious, wear-resistant polymer available in additive manufacturing that can be used in those same types of applications.”

Jabil claims its PK 5000 produces parts with improved impact strength and greater chemical resistance compared to PA 12 and available polymer powders for SLS processes. (Image courtesy of Jabil.)

Jabil claims its PK 5000 produces parts with improved impact strength and greater chemical resistance compared to PA 12 and available polymer powders for SLS processes. (Image courtesy of Jabil.)

A third advantage is that polyketone has similar chemical resistances to olefins.

“It’s got phenomenal fuel resistances to gasoline, jet fuel, et cetera, as well as great hydrolysis and water resistance,” said Rodgers. “So it doesn’t absorb a ton of moisture. The physical properties don’t care whether it’s wet or not. The physicals stay great throughout being in dry and wet environments, which is unique compared to the other polyamides.”

Last but not least, PK 5000 is an eco-friendly material due to the fact that it sequesters carbon monoxide from the environment.

“Part of the backbone of this polymer has carbon monoxide in it,” said Rodgers. “It’s taking greenhouse gases out of the world and putting it into a solid form-factor that can be utilized for engineering applications.”

With sustainability being top of mind, Jabil Additive is also looking at post-industrial recycling of the PK 5000 after it has been used for additive manufacturing.

6K Additive

Another notable company to be featured in RAPID + TCT’s materials space was 6K Additive, who received the Environmental Sustainability Research Award from the Additive Manufacturing Trade Green Association (AMGTA) for the life cycle assessment analysis of their proprietary UniMelt powder manufacturing process. As the world’s only microwave production-scale plasma system, UniMelt sustainably manufactures AM powders like nickel, titanium, copper and refractory metals such as tungsten and rhenium. In the case of nickel production, the method has been found by sustainability and energy firm Foresight Management to reduce carbon emissions by 92 percent while using 91 percent less energy than traditional processes.

Until now, most powder has been manufactured through atomization, which has inherent deficiencies. For one, the technology has a yield of only about 20-30 percent, and introduces unwelcome porosity to powders. Another issue is that the process uses ingot or wire, which comes with supply chain issues because it is typically sourced from places like China, Russia or Ukraine.

Contrastingly, 6K Additive’s UniMelt technology uses scrap material including CNC shavings, millings, turnings and used powder. According to the company, even if this scrap has been re-used frequently and don’t flow well, 6K can take it and mill it to size ahead of time. Since the plasma process involves far less gas flow, the porosity of the resulting powders is considerably lower.

“It allows us to basically take a whole host of materials now that are difficult for others to source,” said Bruce Bradshaw, Chief Marketing Officer at 6K. “There’s an infinite number of materials, because we’re using scrap as our feedstock. It’s a very sustainable process because we’re using scrap. We don’t produce waste and we use less energy and gas. The quality of the material is better than the other process.”

“It’s really driven largely by how effectively the microwave couples to form the plasma,” added Frank Roberts, President of 6K Additive. “You get roughly 90-99 percent coupling, so it’s highly efficient. The other key is it’s a lot less gas flow since we only have to melt discrete particles. We don’t have to create a molten pool or a molten stream.”

Dr Behrang Poorganji, Morf3D’s VP of Materials Technology, and Frank Roberts, 6K Additive’s President, at RAPID + TCT. (Image courtesy of 6K.)

Dr Behrang Poorganji, Morf3D’s VP of Materials Technology, and Frank Roberts, 6K Additive’s President, at RAPID + TCT. (Image courtesy of 6K.)

Since 6K Additive is still relatively new—having begun in 2014—one of their big announcements at RAPID + TCT was a partnership with solution integrator Morf3D, who will be demonstrating the equivalency of 6K’s metal powders for aerospace and defense customers.

To read about what we saw at RAPID + TCT on the second day of the trade show, check out Highlights from the RAPID + TCT Show Floor: Day 2.