3D Printing for the Automotive Industry
Serially Produced Vehicles and Motor Sports
What Drives Manufacturers in the Automotive Industry
The advent of the automotive age was the very definition of disruption, suddenly, muscle power was no longer the only way to achieve locomotion, it could also be motorized. The automotive revolution happened over a century ago, but today the industry is facing a wave of new possibilities and challenges.
Customer Demands, Cost Pressure & Asymmetric Competition
Sustainability
Customers value sustainability. This includes e-mobility, as well as the desire for more efficient engines and to improve vehicle service life, which is now longer today. Spare parts availability is also high on the agenda.
Series Customizing
More and more customers are interested in customization and the objective of series customizing is to facilitate the designing of high-quality details such as decorative interior elements.
Tooling
Cost pressure is rising, and every detail counts. This puts the focus on one of the key partners of the automotive industry – the tooling industry, which needs to leverage potential in terms of part quality, functional integration, production speed and tool stability.
Production Process
Competition is expanding. Digitalization and mobility are opening up new business models for newcomers. This makes it all the more important to modernize production processes by taking advantage of state-of-the-art technologies.
Additive Manufacturing for Vehicle Parts
Automotive Production With EOS 3D Printing Solutions
Our projects show how customers from the automotive industry have successfully broken new ground with EOS solutions. Our solution chains for industrial 3D printing allow potential to be leveraged and products to be reimagined where classical technologies could not meet this need. Together with well-known companies from the vehicle manufacturing and motor sports sectors, we tackle a wide variety of challenges with great success for our customers.
"We believe EOS displays the maturity and the professionalism which we try to betray ourselves. We are not just a racing team, we are an engineering company. All our products, all our race cars are based on sound engineering decisions and we can see this reflected in EOS."
Richard Brady | Williams Martini Racing
It's been a tremendous project from start to finish, as exciting as it was challenging for our expertise. We are excited to imagine that all these cars are now all over the world. And throughout all of this project, we knew we could count on reliability, quality and support from EOS.
Charles de Forges | Spartacus 3D
Made With EOS
Product Innovations by Our Customers
EOS Projects From Practice
Additive Manufacturing for the Series Production of Vehicles
For automotive manufacturers and suppliers, additive manufacturing is more than just rapid prototyping: from spare parts production on demand to series customizing and automated 3D production cells for industrial manufacturing, anything is possible. In this area, 3D printing is especially effective thanks to its combination of flexibility, innovative strength, and cost-efficiency.
The Potential of Additive Manufacturing for Serially Produced Vehicles
We help our customers implement additive manufacturing wherever it can fully demonstrate its strengths. This ranges from major changes to logistics systems, detailed equipment customization and lightweight parts, to engine technology fine-tuning. 3D printing technology holds the potential to optimize the automotive production value chain and react quickly and flexibly to new trends. This potential is extremely valuable in an industry where every player, automotive manufacturer, OEM and tooling provider faces high costs and innovation pressure.
- Individual and revolutionary: series customizing & design
- Efficient and high-performance: optimized parts
- Sustainable and cost-efficient: spare parts on demand
- Flexible and functionally integrated: mold-making by 3D printing
Industrial 3D Printing & Customizing
Various elements can be customized with industrial 3D printing and delivered quickly, as demonstrated by the MINI Yours Customized program. Using the 3D printing process with the EOS P 396 system and the material PA 1101, customized cockpit trims and indicator inlays were manufactured with high-quality plastic properties.
- The freedom of design to make individual adjustments
- Delivery within just a few weeks thanks to short production times
- Part quality, functionality and safety meet the strict product guidelines of MINI
- A system tailored to series production
3D-Printed and Customized Wheel Lock
Ford uses EOS 3D printing to unite the need for security with the desire for customization. Together with the Additive Minds Consulting team, Ford succeeded in creating an innovative application for optimal protection against theft: customized, 3D printed wheel locks. The locks have a special shaft geometry that prevents unauthorized persons from removing the tires and/or rims.
Using a web-based configurator by Trinckle together with EOS 3D printing technology, the new wheel locks can be customized with a very individual design to protect the customer’s car wheels against theft. The first step is to record the car owner’s voice. The audio curve obtained from this voice is then visualized and converted into a geometry that is made into a wheel lock using 3D printing. Each lock is unique to the car’s owner and can only be opened with the correct key, improving the security of the vehicle even further.
Limited Series DS 3 Dark Side With Titanium 3D Printing
For the Dark Side Edition of the DS 3 by DS Automobiles, a subsidiary of the PSA group, the 3D printing specialists Spartacus3D worked in close collaboration with EOS to manufacture a trim strip from titanium – quickly, in the highest quality and cost-efficiently. The part is built on an EOS M 290 from EOS Titanium Ti64.
- The build time of each part is less than one hour
- 200 parts can be manufactured per job without affecting the product quality
- Maximum precision without distortion even with an upright design
- Complex 3D titanium mesh satisfying all manufacturer requirements
Industrial 3D Printing & Part Optimization
The future of automotive technology lies in the details. Indeed, one of the key issues of our time is increasing the efficiency of an engine means that it uses raw materials more efficiently. Questions of temperature management also have a major impact on the efficiency of technical systems. 3D printing is perfect for all of these details, since structures and functionality of any complexity can be integrated directly into the parts.
Optimized Temperature Management
Manufacture Cooling Elements & Heat Exchangers With EOS 3D Printing Solutions
Conflux Technology | 3D Printed Heat Exchanger
Conflux Technology has patented a highly efficient, compact heat exchanger design that derives its performance from a geometry that can only be made using additive manufacturing (AM).
Heat Exchangers | Efficiently Built With 3D Printing
Wherever electricity or heat is flowing, you’ll typically also need a high-performance heat exchanger. Industrial 3D printing is extremely promising for manufacturing this kind of temperature management part.
Spare Parts on Demand for Automotive Manufacturers
Currently, spare parts are manufactured, stored and either delivered at some point during the warranty period or scrapped. EvoBus, the bus division of the Daimler group, is moving away from this expensive approach – additive manufacturing is slowly but surely taking over, and spare parts are now being manufactured on demand and locally wherever possible.
This way, industrial 3D printing is helping EvoBus GmbH to tackle their current CSP challenges and achieve more profitability to expand the company’s pioneering role.
Tooling and Mold-Making for the Automotive Industry
When building tire segments, the potential of additive manufacturing truly comes to shine, for example in the snipes – the complex shapes that form the basis of the tread pattern. Additive manufacturing with metals can be used to create molded parts for tire production that would be difficult or even impossible to produce conventionally.
An overview of our projects
Heat exchangers for more efficiency, optimized spare parts logistics on demand or the series production of complex parts for various models of automobile: over the past 30 years, we have realized many innovative projects together with well-known automotive manufactures and suppliers.
EvoBus GmbH | Additive Manufacturing Is a Core Element of Sustainable Spare Parts Management
Comprehensive consulting to help efficiently enter the world of additive manufacturing and establish a sustainable spare parts management system
Spartacus3D | Metal 3D Printing with Titanium
Additive manufacturing gave complete creative freedom to the DS design team, as well as very fast and easy implementation and production.
Innomia | Conformal Cooling with Additive Manufacturing
Accelerate production and reduce maintenance: Innomia uses EOS metal 3D printer for optimizing manufacturing process for automotive components.
