Sintering and additive manufacturing: “additive manufacturing and the new paradigm for the jewellery manufacturer”

Abstract

The use of various sintering technologies, allied to suitable powder metallurgy, has long been the subject of discussion within the global jewellery manufacturing community. This exciting, once theoretical and experimental technology is now undoubtedly a practical application suitable for use by the jewellery industry. All parts of the jewellery industry supply and value chains, and especially design and manufacturing, now need to become aware very quickly of just how unsettling and disruptive this technology introduction has the potential to become. This paper will offer various viewpoints that consider not only the technology and its application to jewellery manufacture but will also consider the new design potentials of the technology to the jewellery industry. It will also briefly consider how that design potential is being taught to future generations of jewellery designers at the Birmingham School of Jewellery. We shall also discuss in some detail the economics of and potential for new and different business models that this technological paradigm might offer the global jewellery industry.Keywords Additive manufacturing Á Direct metal laser melting Á Direct metal laser sintering Á Jewellery Á Precious metals Á CAD Á 3D printing RationaleThis paper intends to explore and open up for debate by the jewellery industry what actions and understanding might be required in order to facilitate the transfer and acceptance of precious metal direct metal laser melting (DMLM) technologies and processes into a manufacturing process specifically tailored for the jewellery manufacturing industries and their related value and supply chains. The goal of the Jewellery Industry Innovation Centre (JIIC) and its parent institution, the Birmingham School of Jewellery, UK, is to encourage its students to develop, design and produce computer aided design (CAD) examples of jewellery products to challenge, prove, and democratise the processes and materials required for the application of precious metal DMLM technology into the production facilities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within the UK jewellery manufacturing sector. The paper also assesses and attempts to quantify the current perceived industry needs for an adaptable, low-volume and innovative new technology that will facilitate rapid responses by SMEs to the consumer's demands for more custom-made, individually designed and personalised jewellery products. Typical jewellery manufacturing processes like lost-wax investment casting or stamping do not have either the necessary quick response times or, more importantly, the design and production flexibility required to address these issues. This paper is intended to help increase jewellery industry awareness, knowledge, and especially it is hoped to speed up jewellery industry uptake of the new design and production capabilities offered by the DMLM processes for working with precious metals. In order to aid the reader who would like to drill down deeper into some of the key technical details of this techn...

Prospects of Jewelry Designing and Production by Additive Manufacturing

“…There are extensive applications of three-dimensional printing technologies in aerospace, medical, engineering, construction, automobiles, architecture, etc. [1,2]. In this paper, we have explored the area of jewelry design.…”

“…It is the foundation of mass customization, which aids slight modifications in particular designs that are quite popular and in high demand [13]. Different software has been developed to design and create CAD jewelry models such as Matrix 3D, Jewel CAD, Rhinoceros 3D, Blender, ArtCAM, Jewel Smith, and Delcam Designer, and Jewel Space [1,14].…”

Social Life-Cycle Assessment of a Piece of Jewellery. Emphasis on the Local Community

“…The EU is an essential supplier of precious jewellery in international trade, and it is also considered to be the 2nd or 3rd largest market for the consumption of jewellery [2]. The precious jewellery sector is defined as "driven by a growing demand for custom-made, personalised, individually designed and innovative designs of high-quality and high-value jewellery as high precious metal prices have resulted in many consumers now considering the design and innovation within a jewellery item as equal to if not more important than its base intrinsic value" [3]. Nowadays, it is not possible to be competitive on price alone, thus, other aspects should be taken into account.…”

“…The aim of involving different people is to validate the collected data through a triangulation [3,4,31]. A cross-check between the data provided by the goldsmith and those provided by the external actors indirectly involved in the organisation activities, was carried out [15].…”

On the application of Electro-sinter-forging to the sintering of high-karatage gold powders

“…In the last decades, the high-quality jewelry industry, traditionally based on handcraft abilities, has been facing a rising interest towards new technologies and innovative materials. This renovation, mainly driven by the specific global scenario, is concerning several aspects of the industrial field, such as the introduction of new technologies [1][2][3] and materials [4,5], the exploitation of new design features [6], and the opening towards new markets. When considering product innovation, two different aspects have to be taken into account: material optimization and process enhancement.…”