3. November 2017

On September 27th, the representatives of the member companies of the ACAM Aachen Center for Additive Manufacturing came together to allocate the joint research projects for the coming year.

Additive Manufacturing gains even greater significance as a credible implementation and alternative to conventional manufacturing. At research location Aachen, where the practice of additive manufacturing plays an essential role, the ACAM Aachen Center for Additive Manufacturing has set itself the goal of bundling activities around the topic and providing the industry the access to the technologies and the associated knowledge. The growing number of research and industry partners, as well as various events around the Additive Manufacturing prove the success of this concept.

Project selection for the year 2018

During the ACAM Annual Meeting the new research projects for the year 2018 were determined and the results of the previous projects were presented. The following project topics will be processed in the following year:

  • Microstructures of Additive Manufactured Metal Parts
  •  Metallographic Preparation and Typical Defects of AM parts
  • AM Quality Assurance
  • Low Cost Powder Material for SLM
  • SLM Process Development for Corrosion Resistant Steels with High Hardness
  • Removal of Support Structures on SLM Parts – Focus on Surfaces with Restricted Accessibility
  •  Study if applying Cost Efficient 3D Printing for Manufacturing Equipment and Tools

For some participants was this annual meeting the first major ACAM event, since the company is constantly welcoming new members.

Second 3D Valley Conference

In addition to the ACAM Annual Meeting, the second 3D Valley Conference took place in Aachen from September 27th to September 29th. Beside the pre-seminar for beginners, the event offered several presentations by representatives from research and industry that covered current aspects of additive manufacturing: from metal and plastics processing to process chains and business models. Between the lectures the participants had the opportunity to discover new companies and development directions of 3D printing as well as start-ups and their work at various trade fair stands. The event was concluded with an excursion to the Belgian company Materialise, which has 25 years of experience in software development and 3D printing service.

formnext 2017

Together with formnext, ACAM will provide a special seminar during the trade fair. With the discover3dprinting the participants have the opportunity to learn what and where the obstacles by the implementation of additive manufacturing are as well as what applications are not rentable for industrial 3D printing. The seminars take place daily from 9:30 to 11:30 am on the am4u area in hall 3.0.
For the exchange with the experts from Aachen, ACAM offers the opportunity to arrange personal appointments in advance under anfrage@acam-aachen.de.

The ACAM – a constantly growing network

The network of ACAM is still open for new members. Depending on the scope of the desired cooperation, the interested companies can choose between three different membership models with different range of services: the basic, business or cooperation membership. These models provide an individual, comprehensive access the network’s service and are open to national and international companies.