{"id":26437,"date":"2020-12-09T15:17:02","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T19:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=26437"},"modified":"2020-12-09T15:17:02","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T19:17:02","slug":"printed-auto-parts-are-just-around-the-corner-for-production-vehicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/printed-auto-parts-are-just-around-the-corner-for-production-vehicles","title":{"rendered":"Printed auto parts are just around the corner for production vehicles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, Detroit auto show crowds scratched\u00a0their heads over a car whose body, frame and interior emerged fully formed at the show from\u00a0computer printers that laid down\u00a0layers of carbon-fiber infused plastic to form the three-dimensional components.<\/p>\n

The 3D printing of auto parts, demonstrated then by a small company called Local Motors,\u00a0has accelerated from auto show curiosity to manufacturing necessity in just a few short years.<\/p>\n

\"Mid-engine\u00a0Corvette<\/p>\n
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This year, printed parts logged 80,000 miles on Chevrolet\u2019s Corvette, IndyCar, NASCAR and Silverado race teams, while providing prototype duty on production vehicles like the Ford Mustang GT500.<\/p>\n

With its hand-made cars and focus on immediate results, the racing industry is the current focus of 3D-printed parts, but manufacturers don\u2019t rule them out for production-line\u00a0vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re on a journey of identifying opportunities across a number of areas including motorsports, product development and future production vehicles,\u201d said Ali Shabbir, General Motors Co.’s chief of additive design and manufacturing product applications. \u201cRacing continues to be an excellent proving ground for new concepts and technologies leading toward production.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leading the way is the mid-engine Corvette C8.R race car which bristled with 75 printed parts as it pounded through grueling endurance races to its first IMSA Weathertech Sportscar GT title this year.<\/p>\n

Those parts\u00a0included such essentials as the oil tank and oil cap, parts of the driver cooling-system, power-steering pump bracket and headlight assemblies. Fifty of the parts were made in-house by GM and survived\u00a0some of the world\u2019s most punishing tracks including the washboard-rough Sebring Raceway in Florida.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n
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The 3D printing process starts with a three-dimensional digital blueprint of a part that is downloaded to a printer. A nozzle on the machine lays down successive layers of plastic, metal or ceramic until a perfect physical representation is created.<\/p>\n

The manufacturing process has become a mainstay of educational\u00a0art programs with classes on how to make printed jewelry and\u00a0decorative objects for the home. On a much larger scale, the technology has become essential to automakers as they seek to shrink production cycles.<\/p>\n

Before they become rolling sheet metal, modern cars are developed with extensive computer modeling. Printed parts help to quickly assemble them into prototype cars for wind-tunnel testing and other development needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we see large benefits in the pre-production space,\u201d said GM\u2019s Shabbir. \u201c3D printing has the benefit of speed and quick iteration. With 3D prototypes, teams can rapidly check the viability of different versions of the same part, which can save considerable time during the development phase.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford showed off its pre-production assets \u2014 including supercomputers, printer\u00a0and wind tunnels \u2014\u00a0to the news media\u00a0last year ahead of the introduction of its 760-horsepower GT500 muscle car.<\/p>\n

\"Ford<\/p>\n
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Crafted at Ford’s Advanced Manufacturing Center in Redford, the printed prototype parts for the GT500 were fitted to the front end of a standard Mustang GT\u00a0for testing at Ford\u2019s wind tunnel\u00a0in Allen Park. The printed parts also did\u00a0duty at the state-of-the-art Windshear wind tunnel\u00a0in North Carolina that’s used by racing teams.<\/p>\n

“We did over 300 simulations in the virtual world, then we 3D-printed car parts and took it in the wind tunnel,” Mustang GT500 aerodynamic engineer Matt Titus told The Detroit News.<\/p>\n

The Team Penske racing team partnered in 2017 with Stratasys, a 3D printing solutions company, for tooling and engineering prototypes. Penske now uses printed\u00a0components on its actual IndyCar racers. For example, the V-6 exhaust system was printed to eliminate failure points in traditional manufactured components while increasing design freedom and reducing cost.<\/p>\n

NASCAR, too, is a hotbed for development. Chevy switched to the Camaro ZL1 1LE for this year\u2019s Cup Series, replacing the ZL1. The body of the new car underwent extensive wind-tunnel testing using over 500 printed prototype parts. On-track, the Camaro uses a printed gear-cooling duct, which logged 18,500 miles of competition in 27 races.<\/p>\n

\"GM<\/p>\n
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Printed parts even go off-road racing. The Chevy Silverado off-road race truck\u00a0has in-house printer-generated components\u00a0including a rear shock absorber shield for protection over rocky desert terrain.<\/p>\n

Don’t expect to see a car on a\u00a0showroom floor\u00a0anytime soon like the one with a body, frame and interior printed at the Detroit auto show. Individual components are a different story.<\/p>\n

\u201cGM\u2019s 3D printing capability speeds up our learning cycles,” said Jim Campbell, chief of GM\u2019s U.S.\u00a0Motorsports, “and, in turn, these racetrack experiences help our additive manufacturing team move one step closer to using 3D printed parts in production vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, Detroit auto show crowds scratched\u00a0their heads over a car whose body, frame and interior emerged fully formed at the show from\u00a0computer printers that laid down\u00a0layers of carbon-fiber infused plastic to form the three-dimensional components. The 3D printing of auto parts, demonstrated then by a small company called Local Motors,\u00a0has accelerated from auto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26438,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26437\/revisions\/26438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}