With its innovative concepts, Linde is playing a pioneering role in the global market. As a technology leader, it is our task to constantly raise the bar and help our customers get ahead.
Linde R&D Centre for additive manufacturing
As the right gas mixtures play a paramount role for 3D prints to meet quality expectations, the new Linde Global Development Centre in Unterschleißheim, near Munich, Germany, investigates on how to optimise the various layering processes. The additive manufacturing research team focuses its efforts on the effects that different atmospheric gases and gas mixtures have on the different metal powders used in additive manufacturing.
ADDvanceTM O2 precision: a product of successful collaboration with Airbus Group
The research initiative for the invention of a new measuring and analysis unit called ADDvanceTM O2 precision was inspired by a collaboration with Airbus Group Innovations, the R&D department of aerospace company Airbus Group SE. Their additive manufacturing team suspected that an inaccurate composition of the gas atmosphere in the printer chamber was negatively impacting product quality and called out for Linde’s expertise and support. Within three month, Pierre Forêt, responsible for Additive Manufacturing at Linde Gas and his team, a solution, which is capable of detecting the lowest levels of contamination. Revolutionary beneficial for the whole industry.
Getting a head start into the future of additive manufacturing
Forêt and his team is currently working on a catalogue of gases tailored to individual materials and printing processes to positively influence reproducibility and product quality. But gases of course do not only play a major role for the atmosphere in the printer chamber, but at every step of the production process, starting with the raw metals that have to be turned into powders through atomization. The gas has a major impact on the quality of the powder. Linde also offers premium-quality gases for the final heat treatment step, which is known as hot isostatic pressing.
“The market is developing rapidly. We want to use our knowledge to help processes become established in the industry and ensure that everyone involved can work together as effectively as possible,” (Pierre Forêt, Head of Additive Manufacturing at Linde Gas)
Linde service and support for 3D customers
Would you like the best possible performance out of your additive manufacturing processes? Linde Gas has bundled its research activities in this area and will continue to lead research into how oxygen and humidity impact the additive manufacturing process. If you want to keep pace with tomorrow’s competition, you need a partner by your side for whom top quality, process optimisation and enhanced productivity are part of daily business. However, we define partnership not merely as being there for you but being with you. After all, joint activities form the core of commercial success.