Development of the Additive Manufacturing Division

Dr. Astrid Rota has been in charge of the Additive Manufacturing (AM) business unit for nine months now. In the months under her leadership, the AM business unit has focused on the factor ‘know-how’. To this end, technology development was explicitly strengthened and established as a separate unit alongside system engineering and software engineering, which continue to form the foundation for new business. Reliable system technology is the basis, but it is also necessary to assess what component quality can be achieved – intelligent process control plays a particularly important role here.

The focus of the dedicated AM team in the Kurtz Ersa Group is the further development of the Flying Ray large-scale printer – this will be set up in such a way that it can be customized. Thanks to “Perfect Angle Printing”, the results achieved on a smaller test system can be transferred very well to the large-scale system. The unit is already offering to produce customer parts on the current prototype system (1,500 x 1,000 mm [L x W]) in 316L material, for example. Material/parameter development according to customer requirements is also possible on test stands and test facilities – the results can then be transferred to the actual component, which can be much larger. All the knowledge gained in mechanical engineering is currently being incorporated into a pilot plant (1,000 x 1,000 mm), which will be specially designed for aluminum alloys.