The Potential of High Speed Sintering for Small Series in the Automotive Industry

Abstract

Individualization in the high-performance segment within the automotive industry is becoming increasingly important. Especially when small volumes are required, conventional manufacturing processes often no longer prove profitable. The use of additive processes in general and high-speed sintering (HSS) in particular offer the freedom to produce complex organic shapes in a cost-effective and resource-saving manner from batch size one onwards. The HSS process is a powder bed-based additive manufacturing process in which thermoplastics are sintered at a constant layer time using an infrared lamp instead of a laserFor this reason, we shed light on the use of high-speed sintering specifically for small components in low-volume production. More precisely, we add the process-specific properties of high-speed sintering to Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) rules. We propose an approach that also enables a time-saving alternative to conventional manufacturing processes and optimizes the design process for the use of high-speed sintering.