The Opportunity of Additive Manufacturing in Power Transmission

by Tommaso Tirelli, FEDERTEC Board of Directors

Can Additive Manufacturing be considered an enabling technology for companies in the power transmission sector? We talked about it with some companies of the field during the training course organized by FEDERTEC. To be clear: we are talking about technologies, in the plural, because there are many possible declinations of additive manufacturing in terms of materials (metal, polymeric, composite) and manufacturing techniques (fusion, sintering, jet, filament, …). All the enthusiastic participants in the course immediately declared that they already have a certain familiarity with 3D printing, having available a small plastic filament printer. At home as a hobby or at work, it is neither difficult nor expensive to try your hand at making prototypes or equipment, built layer by layer. But will 4.0 technologies soon become compatible with real industrial production? The answer seems to be positive, although it is clear to everyone that they will never be the solution to all problems, but will go hand in hand with already consolidated techniques and processes. This also emerges from the recently published study carried out by SPS Italia. Here are just a few of the many advantages offered by additive manufacturing: its great versatility (by changing the file, you change the product), the possibility of creating complex shapes that were previously unattainable; the reduction in number of components; less weight. Not last, the possibility of rapid prototyping, intended as a bridge for custom-made production. Of course, new forces must be deployed and the effort required is not trivial: the axis of competitiveness shifts to the design phase, which requires the use of advanced approaches, such as, for example, that of topological optimization (an ideal inspiration from the forms of nature). In addition, knowledge of materials, manufacturing, finishing, control and certification processes is needed. And that’s no small feat, especially for SMEs. Above all, for Additive to become competitive and scalable, a new paradigm is needed and a different thinking. It is not just a matter of acquiring new digital skills. The hard technical skills must be trained and developed together with the soft transversal ones, because the customer’s needs must be understood and anticipated, by adopting an empathetic approach uprooted from the pre-established schemes of traditional manufacturing. It will still take some time for the training chain, from high school to university, to be fully structured for that challenge, however many positive signs are already visible. To approach additive technologies, in addition to the service bureaus equipped with 3D printers, companies have at their disposal a network of competence centers with which exchange ideas and start experimenting. A network that is thickening, both on national (CIM4.0, MADE, Bi-Rex) and regional basis…to get closer to the future.