SLM Solutions presents upgraded SLM 280 2.0 at Tire Technology

Now in its 17th year, this most im­por­tant in­ter­na­tional ex­hi­bi­tion and con­fer­ence for tire pro­duc­tion will take place from 14. – 16. Feb­ru­ary 2017. Tire Technology Expo 2017 of­fers the vis­i­tor the world’s pre­mier tech­nol­ogy show­case, with ex­hibits of equip­ment and ma­te­ri­als cov­er­ing the com­plete spec­trum of the tire man­u­fac­tur­ing process.

The SLM So­lu­tions Group AG will pre­sent the lat­est de­vel­op­ments in metal-based ad­di­tive SLM tech­nol­ogy in Hanover that will op­ti­mize tire pro­duc­tion. With the SLM 280 2.0, the North Ger­mans will show the en­tire process chain (closed loop) of gen­er­a­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing: from data gen­er­a­tion to the melt­ing process up to pow­der re­cov­ery and re­cy­cling.

SLM tech­nol­ogy is used in tire pro­duc­tion for the man­u­fac­tur­ing of both sam­ple and se­r­ial mold seg­ments for tire treads. By the in­creas­ing com­pet­i­tive pres­sure the tire in­dus­try is now forced to uti­lize all op­por­tu­ni­ties to in­crease their ef­fi­ciency sys­tem­at­i­cally. And one such op­por­tu­nity is ad­di­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing. The SLM 280 2.0 is the ideal “all-pur­pose sys­tem” for both R+D di­vi­sions as well as for pro­duc­tion processes using SLM pro­ce­dures. The ma­chines pro­vided by the SLM So­lu­tions Group AG can help op­ti­mize both processes and pro­duc­tion. They are not only cus­tomized to the re­quire­ments of the tire mold pro­duc­tion but also min­i­mize en­ergy con­sump­tion while at the same time max­i­miz­ing pro­duc­tiv­ity.

On the first day of the ex­hi­bi­tion, the Lübeck-based ex­perts will also act as pro­gram de­sign­ers at the Con­gress. In his speech “Metal 3D print­ing tech­nol­ogy (SLM) for se­r­ial pro­duc­tion of tire molds” Ralf Fro­hw­erk, Global Head of Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment of the SLM So­lu­tions Group AG, will show the man­u­fac­tur­ers how they can profit from SLM tech­nol­ogy. He will hold his speech on Tues­day, 14. Feb­ru­ary 2017 at 14:40 h. The focus of the speech will lie on the ne­ces­sity of im­proved trac­tion on wet sur­faces. He will also prove that the pro­duc­tion of new mold seg­ments for tire treads using SLM tech­nol­ogy will be faster, and also more exact and highly cost ef­fec­tive. SLM tech­nol­ogy also en­ables the cre­ation of new tire tread molds using the free de­sign pos­si­bil­i­ties of three-di­men­sional geome­tries. The layer-by-layer process using fine metal pow­ders al­lows the con­struc­tion of del­i­cate tire blades di­rectly dur­ing the SLM process – a great im­prove­ment in com­par­i­son to the con­ven­tional process where tire blades have to be in­te­grated in­di­vid­u­ally.

And SLM So­lu­tions will con­tinue to in­crease the pro­duc­tiv­ity of the gen­er­a­tive process to im­prove the com­mer­cial break-even-point in com­par­i­son with con­ven­tional pro­duc­tion. In the SLM ma­chine, the pow­der is au­to­mat­i­cally fused using a 400 W or 700 W laser beam. With the SLM 500 and its patented multi-beam tech­nol­ogy, one com­po­nent is man­u­fac­tured using up to four 700 W laser beams si­mul­ta­ne­ously. With the quad laser tech­nol­ogy (4x 700 W) in com­bi­na­tion with our patented bi-di­rec­tional re­coat­ing sys­tem, these ma­chines in­crease the build-up rate up to 90% com­pared with the twin con­fig­u­ra­tion (2x 700 W).

The ma­chines of SLM So­lu­tions com­prise qual­ity as­sur­ance sys­tems, au­to­mated pow­der han­dling and also pow­der con­trol sys­tems.