Plant and Machinery in Construction

Additive manufacturing creates innovative products and corresponding product benefits that give mechanical engineers, machine users and contract manufacturers decisive competitive advantages. With the help of CAD, CAE and CAM, the value of additive manufacturing can already be seen in the design phase: Thanks to rapid prototyping, each step can already be inspected in the development process, components can be optimized during simulation and adjustments to meet customization requirements can be carried out much more quickly and simply. A good example of this: In the gas turbine plant in Berlin, innovation cycles for turbine vanes have been shortened by 75%.

In additive manufacturing, components are produced layer for layer without the need for a mold. This means that e.g. prototypes or individual parts can be produced by simply transferring the part geometry to the machine.

Because some additive manufacturing processes combine different materials in one production process in a completely new way, downstream assembly processes are no longer required. Performance is considerably increased because even complex assembly parts can be created in one step. Another advantage: far less material is required compared to classic manufacturing processes. In this way, recycling processes that can be very time-consuming (e.g. metal) are eliminated. Even the handling of spare parts is more efficient, because production can take place on-site and, therefore, storage and logistics costs are reduced or completely eliminated.