“How do you turn a single groundbreaking lab demonstration into an entirely new manufacturing sector?” For Additive Engineering Solutions (AES) in Ohio, it has been the question that has shaped this company on its path to becoming a market-leader in large format polymer 3D printing. Its inception, meanwhile, follows the earlier discovery of the possibility to fabricate not in millimeters but also in metres (boundary pushed as a result of research at ORNL’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF)) by making use of Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM).
And in 2014 ORNL with Cincinnati Incorporated and industry partners shocked the International Manufacturing Technology Show with a fully functional car that they printed on stage. One of the captivated audience members was Austin Schmidt, a young engineer at Caterpillar. Shortly afterward, Schmidt and his team collaborated with MDF to create a 2,000-pound bulldozer frame prototype, demonstrating that large-format polymer printing was capable of expediting design validation as well as the assembly process. But MDF’s purpose was research, not manufacturing. Or as Schmidt put it: “Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s MDF will print one part for anyone, but two parts for no one.”
Seeing that there was a disconnect between research potential and market demand, Schmidt teamed up with Andrew Bader, whose metalworking roots balanced out the engineer’s knowledge. Together they formed AES, with the simple plan of providing large format prints commercially. The first obstacle was finding a BAAM printer a machine so large that its build chamber could double as a dining room. BAAM, developed in collaboration with Cincinnati Incorporated by ORNL, is based on industrial laser cutter technology that swaps a laser for a plastic extruder.
The BAAM process is based on the extrusion of melt polymer (this can be stack or one layer at time) and build platform moves up that dimension. The accuracy of the process is controlled by ORNL’s Slicer software, which takes CAD models and converts them into layered toolpaths that drive the motion of the nozzle and material deposition. “The Slicer software program takes an object, ‘slices’ it into layers, then fits toolpaths to each layer,” said Alex Roschli, ORNL’s lead software engineer. AES quickly discovered that Slicer was just as crucial to master as the hardware itself, particularly when it came to altering geometries for large-format printing.
One lingering technical obstacle was the “Goldilocks” temperature problem: layers had to be deposited at precisely the right temperature in order to bond. If it’s too cold the two don’t stick… (and) if it’s too hot then the shape changes. The chance of failure increases as the size of the part does, hours of printing can be wasted by a layer inadvertently cooling before the nozzle returns. AES’s novel solution was to angle the nozzle at 45 degrees, which shortened toolpaths and minimized cooling dwells. This allowed for new geometries like bowls but also brought with it the new impressive problem of collision avoidance and more difficult path planning.
There’s always been an active partnership with (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). AES collaborates with the lab monthly shaping the evolution of software and incorporating new features. Advancements including multi-material slicing suggest that the capability of large format printing will grow to allow for transitions, in a single print, from – in this case – CF-filled thermoplastics to GF filled examples. This functionality could enable customized mechanical properties in different areas of a part especially important for aerospace tooling, automotive parts and defense applications.
The extensive area of polymer based large-scale additive manufacturing (LAP) has had many size-based scaling issues far more significant than those observed at desktop 3D printing scales. Layer to layer adhesions, anisotropy and thermal dissipation between layers all become challenging at meter scale lengths as illustrated in recent study. Approaches utilising heated extrusion, hybrid additive–subtractive systems and adaptive path planning are investigated in order to balance between precision and process times. Pointing to ORNL’s Slicer 2, with more than 500 adjustable parameters and sensorfed integration, Wheeler says the software continues to evolve and is moving closer to raying objects “the size of a house and beyond.”
The growth of AES represents the evolution of the BAAM ecosystem. Having four of the fifteen BAAM systems that were ever made (and Cincinnati Inc. no longer selling them), AES has turned into a go-to source for other companies that need this specialty skills, the printing of polymer with large area capabilities. From aerospace to defense and construction, its production delivers real world performance and cost advantages through lightweighting as well as rapid-prototyped or complex geometries.
The company is adding new factory space to handle growing demand. “Large scale polymer is still pretty niche, so it’s not a massive market, but it’s growing every year. Within the last couple years, we’re really hitting our stride. And that’s because the market itself is finally catching up.” For those in advanced manufacturing, AES’s experience demonstrates how focused research partnerships, technical troubleshooting and strategic market positioning can turn a laboratory discovery into an industrial capability one that is pushing the limits of additive manufacturing.