This presentation outlines how a combined material and equipment innovation was applied to overcome such challenges. A production proven, low carbon, high hardness, high ductility tool steel (L-40), that was specifically designed for the PBF-LB/M process and prints directly to a required hardness of HRC 48 was selected and processed by a novel, five-laser gantry-based PBF-LB/M machine, featuring a build volume of 1.0 x 0.8 x 0.4 m³, to manufacture a large automotive Al-High-Pressure Diecasting (HPDC) production tool insert (bounding box 515 x 485 x 206 mm³, volume >20,000 cm³ ).
The presentation will comment on each of the required workflow steps of the large insert production process and address some of the technical and commercial challenges and their applied solutions. Technical aspects such as L-40 parameter transfer to the new machine and the resulting cooling channel surface properties will also be highlighted. In addition, the applied hybrid manufacturing approach will be discussed to meet the required insert cost targets. The presentation will close with an outlook towards PBF-LB/M manufacturing of even larger inserts for future (mega) giga-cast applications.
Speaker: Niklas Prätzsch, Group Manager LPBF Process & Systems Engineering, Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology