Additive Manufacturing

Manufacturing at Lancaster

The School of Engineering plays host to a wide range of the latest in additive manufacturing technologies, often labelled 3D printers. These machines and the experienced staff who operate and maintain them are used to support knowledge exchange, collaborative research, postgraduate research and undergraduate research.

There are a large number of machines covering a range of different additive manufacturing processes. This variety of processes allows parts and assemblies to be produced in appropriate materials with suitable accuracy and on scales of different sizes, from a few millimetres to several metres.

The ability of additive manufacturing to produce complex geometry that is difficult or even impossible to produce conventionally with no specialist tooling or fixtures gives great flexibility for everything from tooling manufacture, prototypes, research components and even fully functional final-use parts.

To accompany the additive processes, we have a range of washing, finishing and post-processing equipment, CNC machining and recycling equipment.

Our additive manufacturing devices can be grouped broadly into several categories:

Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM)

The FDM process (sometimes called Fused Filament Fabrication FFF) uses a polymer filament which passes through a heated nozzle. This nozzle moves around while extruding filament to create the components layer by layer. This process is utilised widely in the School as the machines and materials are relatively inexpensive, there is a wide choice of available materials and the machines are easy to operate. These machines have been used to produce thousands of parts for undergraduate projects, academic research and industry.

Ultimakers

The School has a wide variety of FDM machines including several Ultimakers (2+, 2+ extended, 3 and S5’s). Ultimakers are desktop-based FDMs, and are capable of building components in a wide variety of materials from the filament. They are more flexible and cheaper to operate than some devices, however, component build quality is not quite as good.

Bambu2

We also have a range of Bambu machines (X1 Carbon, P1S, A1 and A1 mini’s). Some of these are multi-filament machines so parts can be built with different colours or even different material blends.

Z Morph

More machines in this category include Creality, FLSun and Z Morph machines). Typical materials that can be used in these machines are ABS, PLA, PC, PU, TPU, PE, PA and ASA amongst others composite and novel materials.

Builder Extreme

To complement the standard FDM printers, there are several other large-scale FDM machines. A Builder Extreme 1500 Pro and a Builder Extreme 2000 allow large format AM (11x500x820 and 700x700x1700mm respectively).

Composite Printers

Finally, there are two composite printers which can print in continuous carbon fibre, Kevlar and glass fibre: the Anisoprint Composer A3 and the Markforged Mark2.

Stereolithography (SLA) and Daylight Polymer Processing (DPP)

These processes use photoreactive polymer resins to produce the component using either a laser or a screen to “flash” the layer image. Where the light, either UV or full spectrum, is exposed to the resin, the resin hardens. This is repeated layer upon layer and the part grows upside down out of the resin.

Formlabs SLA

The School hosts several Formlabs SLA machines, including the desktop-based Formlab Form3, which is capable of fast 3D printing with an excellent success rate.

Photocentric DPP machines

We are also host to a range of DPP machines (Magna, LC Precision and HR2) and several Elegoo, Voxelab and Anycubic printers. These machines offer a high-quality finish and more accurate build than FDM and high-temperature, touch, hard, flexible and castable resins are available.

Material Jetting

These processes use material that is sprayed through special heads, similar to inkjet heads which is cured or set on the build base.

Stratasys J750

The Stratasys J750 is a multi-material machine that can build in 6 different materials in the same build the can also blended in the same way an inkjet printer blends coloured inks. This means that we can build either full-colour prints or manufacture parts, with specifically tailored material properties.

Solidscape Z Studio

The Solidscape Z Studio is a printer which builds exclusively in wax. It is used for investment casting of small but detailed parts. The small build volume of 150x150x50mm is offset somewhat by the incredible detail that can be obtained with layers going as thin as 6 microns.

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

This process uses layers of polymer powder, typically polyamide (PA) more commonly known as nylon, which is heated using a laser to form a cake with fused powder inside. The loose powder is removed revealing the built parts.

3D Systems SPro60 HS

The 3D Systems SPro60 HS is a large industrial SLS machine, with a build volume of 381x330x460mm, which is capable of processing a range of polymer powders and manufacturing large parts or a large number of smaller parts in one build.

Sinterit SLS and Formlabs Fuse1

The School has 3 Sinterit SLS machines which are smaller than the SPro60 and have fewer materials available due to the lower-powered laser. They are simpler to operate and quicker to load and unload.

We also have a Formlabs Fuse1, a relatively simple machine to use with a build volume of 165x165x300mm. It is slightly larger than the LISA machines but still retains the ease of loading and unloading.

Metal Additive Manufacturing

There are two metal 3D printers at the School, with each utilising different methods to manufacture structures.

Meltio M450

The Meltio M450 uses metal wire extrusion, similar to CNC MIG welding to put down layers of a base metal. The difference between this and MIG is that, instead of an electric arc melting the wire, a series of focussed lasers melt the wire at a very precise point.

Realizer 100

A Realizer 100selective laser melting machine spreads a thin layer (typically 50 microns) of metal powder and creates a melt pool with a fibre laser to fuse the powder particles together. A relatively small build envelope of 100mm diameter x 80mm tall is offset by the wide variety of metals it will process, including 316 stainless steel, cobalt chrome, titanium, aluminium and several tool steels amongst others.