Industrialization of the Composite 3D Printing for General Motors

A few days ago, General Motors Corporation (GM) announced the opening of a 15,000 square feet Additive Industrialization Center (AIC) in the Warren Technology Center in the suburbs of Detroit. The center will be dedicated to promoting 3D printing in the automotive industry. The goal of the AIC Center is to mass-produce products by 3D printing and widely apply it to development and manufacturing of General Motors. It is said that AIC can be regarded as a master of GM's 3D printing technology and investment in recent years.
 
Audley Brown who is a director of additive design and materials engineering at GM said that GM was becoming a more flexible and innovative company. 3D printing would play a key role in this mission. Compared with traditional processes, 3D Printing could produce parts in a few days instead of weeks or months, and the cost was greatly reduced.
 
In the future, 3D printing technology will completely change the automobile manufacturing process, which can shorten development time, reduce costs and improve quality. AIC has 24 sets of 3D printers, which can provide a variety of polymer and metal additive manufacturing solutions. This technology can speed up the manufacture of parts. Compared with manual manufacturing, 3D printing can quickly manufacture a part and check its functions. The additive design and manufacturing team conducts research and development through various additive manufacturing processes such as selective laser sintering, selective laser melting, multi-jet melting and fused deposition.

AIC is committed to the development and application of additive manufacturing technology, as well as the development of related machinery and equipment. AIC cooperates with GM Ventures and GM R&D to accelerate product development and processing in a coordinated and integrated development way.

At the beginning of 2020, GM shared the importance of 3D printing technology in the transformation of the company's business from automobile manufacturing to medical equipment in just a few days, and demonstrated how 3D printing technology can provide technical support on the racing track. 3D printing technology is changing the company's operating strategy.
 
A director of the GM Additive Manufacturing and Polymer Center whose name is Ron Daul said that GM would benefit from the application of 3D printing technology from prototype vehicle development to tooling manufacturing and mass production of vehicles. After the opening of AIC, GM was going to continue to accelerate the practical application of this technology within the organization.

Functional prototype development
GM has a history of using 3D printing technology to rapidly produce prototypes to verify designs. At present, many parts produced by AIC are tested in various test environments as functional prototypes of pre-production cars. Early integrated vehicles and test benches are usually equipped with 3D printed parts, which can be tested in the same way as traditional tool parts.
 
3D printed functional prototypes can avoid the equipment cost of early development. Therefore, engineers can perform rapid iterations and make design changes, thereby shortening the development cycle. For example, the team used 3D printing technology to produce brake cooling pipes for Chevrolet Corvette models, saving a total of 9 weeks of development time and 60% of development costs.
 
"Many recent product plans had benefited from 3D printing prototype parts in one way or another. Not only did these parts save time and money, but the team also used 3D printing application programs during product development to overcome unexpected challenges in real time." said Brown

Tool development
General Motors also produces a large number of 3D printing tools for assembling cars. Manufacturing tools come in many forms, such as hand tools, automated components and quick response solutions released on the production site.

3D printing technology enables the development team to integrate various functional components into the overall optimized design. The developed tool has lighter weights, simpler structure and conforms to ergonomic requirements.
 
The development team has developed nearly 100 kinds of 3D printing tools for the new SUV developed by the Arlington assembly plant. In the past, these tools were made from aluminum alloy and weighed 10 to 40 pounds. In the new design, the researchers used carbon fiber-reinforced nylon composite materials, and the tool weight was only about 3 pounds. At the same time, the delivery time of the tool was also greatly reduced. Daul said: "3D printing tools in the body repair factory in Arlington saved more than two months of tool manufacturing time. This was a critical moment when we changed factories to launch new models. Ultimately, 3D printing helped accelerate the release of new cars, for example our full-size SUV."

AIC and GM's additive manufacturing technology makes development capabilities more powerful, and can better respond to the technical requirements for global manufacturing plants. A few days before production and applications, GM's sub-brand Cadillac announced that its high-performance cars CT4-V Blackwing and CT5-V Blackwing would be the first models of GM to adopt 3D printed parts, such as two air ducts, wiring racks, marks on the manual gearbox shift lever, etc. Using additive manufacturing technology, the Cadillac team has significantly reduced costs and improved production efficiency in the process of developing high-performance manual transmissions.
 
In addition, 3D printing technology can also help engineers optimize vehicle components. For example, the aluminum fuel tank and air intake components on the Chevrolet Corvette C8.R racing car have been 3D printed to reduce 14 weld seams and the weight is reduced by 32%. General Motors also uses 3D printing technology at an assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, and it has nearly 100 hand tools, usually weighing between 10 and 40 pounds. However, the 3D printed one made from nylon carbon fiber composite materials weighs only 3 pounds.
 
Brown said: "The parts printed for the Cadillac V series models illustrated how we could use additive manufacturing applications in the right place in the right process, and this was just the beginning. In the end, we would see potentialities of 3D printed parts in various production applications from more personalized options for new car buyers to unique accessories and replicas of classic car parts."