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A 1965 Shelby Cobra 427 shown at the Detroit Auto Show was additively manufactured on a Cincinnati BAAMCI machine by DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), one of seven founding members of the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation. The Detroit IACMI branch will get $70 million to develop a robust supply chain to improve materials, handling, and machining properties for automotive composites.

The latest developments in short-pulse and fiber lasers offer new ways to create today’s innovative medical devices

There are different forms of electric discharge machining (EDM), but all basically work in the same manner. EDM works by eroding material in the path of electrical discharges that form “a conduction channel” between an electrode tool and a workpiece.

More shops than ever are embracing waterjet cutting systems. And for the most part, the reason is that a number of customer-driven improvements/innovations to waterjet technology make it even more user friendly, productive and appealing to an ever-broadening array of manufacturers.

You don’t have to look too far to find the reasons for the growth of fiber lasers for production applications. On price per watt, beam quality, electrical consumption, and maintainability required, fiber lasers typically score the lowest on the cost side and very high on the performance side.

From NASCAR to the operating room, metal components used in many industries require precise, permanent markings that can accurately trace a part’s serial number and other vital statistics that are key to recalls, medical liability cases, and even supply-chain or quality-control issues.

“You guys are crazy!” That’s what Makino EDM product line manager Brian Pfluger was told—loudly—by a medical-industry customer after Pfluger recommended he use coated wire to make a custom housing for cancer treatment machines.

Laser technology for drilling precision holes has taken a leap forward with faster, cheaper, high-accuracy fiber lasers, which are used in the aerospace industry for turbine engine hole-drilling and other industries. Short-pulse picosecond fiber lasers are likewise making inroads, drilling small, precise holes for the medical and microelectronics industries.

Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) has been removing metal by spark erosion for more than half a century—with sinker (ram/Elox-) style EDMing for molds and wire EDM for precision parts cutting, especially dies.

GE is preparing to sell to outsiders a subtractive manufacturing technology called Blue Arc that represents “a big step forward” in cutting tools, a field that’s been stuck on hard tungsten carbide tools since the 1950s, Dan Potvin, licensing manager with GE Ventures, said.