Metal 3D printing technology is gaining more and more traction in the industrial field. The aerostructures supplier Premium AEROTEC holds a leading position within its sector for this technology.

To consolidate this position and to expand the company's capabilities beyond aviation, Premium AEROTEC is starting a joint project with experienced partners EOS, the leading technology supplier for industrial 3D printing, and Daimler, the renowned automotive manufacturer.

Together, they will develop the next generation of additive manufacturing (AM) in their NextGenAM project. Via this cooperation, the companies are laying the foundations for the implementation of this technology in large-scale serial manufacturing.

The objective of the project is to progress the automation of the entire industrial 3D printing process. For this, the NextGenAM project team will check the entire additive manufacturing process to see whether parts of it can be automated, from the delivery of metal powder to the processing stages after the build process itself.

By this measure, the partners hope to gain significant cost advantages and important foundations in order to use this technology for large-scale serial manufacturing in the future. The process stages before and after the actual manufacturing process constitute around 70 percent of the manufacturing costs. In addition to advanced system technology, the project also strives for a qualification of aluminium for use in industrial 3D printing.

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