Techniplas opens additive manufacturing center

Techniplas, a leading global design and manufacturing provider of automotive products and services, announced the opening of its Additive Manufacturing Center in Ventura, California.

A Techniplas employee works on a project with a new Nexa3D printer at the company’s Additive Manufacturing Center in Ventura, Calif. (Photo by Laurent Leger Adame for Techniplas) (PRNewsfoto/Techniplas)

Operated by Techniplas Digital, the company’s digital-innovation and transformation unit, the new facility brings together the latest in generative design and light weighting technology with advanced 3D-printing capabilities. The Additive Manufacturing Center will deliver lighter and stronger parts, as well as cognitive assemblies, for the benefit of its global automotive clients.

The new facility is equipped with a dozen 3D printers including DMLS, FDM and SLA. Techniplas Digital plans to bring another 20 new high-speed 3D printers on line before the end of this year.

Techniplas Digital is using advanced additive-metal techniques to rapidly deploy hybrid tooling. Hybrid tooling is the combination of traditional tool and mold bases with modular plugin inserts that are 3D printed for shorter production runs and greater manufacturing flexibility.

“We are moving quickly to eliminate many of the traditional constraints that most manufacturing companies face today,” said Avi Reichental, Vice- Chairman Techniplas and CEO, Techniplas Digital. “Our facility brings together the latest in generative-design tools including metamaterials mesostructural-optimization capabilities and high-speed, UV-curable polymer 3D printing.”

In addition to speeding up Techniplas’ innovation cycles, the Additive Manufacturing Center is collaborating with early-stage companies to develop advanced algorithms that enhance its overall digital thread and manufacturing capabilities. That includes a new cloud-based generative design platform that compiles lightweight and metamaterial lattice structures automatically on demand based on size, weight, strength, style, materials, cost, and any number of other requirements that can be specified by a designer or an engineer.

Techniplas
www.techniplas.com