Enabling Materials for Additive Manufacturing

Addressing industry needs

Many believe that Additive Manufacturing – or 3D printing – is still years away from being common practice in industrial manufacturing. In reality, it is available and affordable today. It offers industries the freedom to design the exact components they need. Strong, lightweight continuous fibre-reinforced thermoplastic and composite materials can be designed to exacting specifications and tested under laboratory conditions.

What’s more, 3D printing offers a viable solution for sustainable manufacturing, allowing customised, local production in a cost-effective and automated process. The materials can contribute to a circular economy and can often be recycled. For the transport industry, 3D-printed replacement parts can be the solution for the maintenance of aging fleets of trucks, buses and heavy machinery, thereby extending the lifetime of essential assets.

Mastering the complexities

The complex domain of Additive Manufacturing requires expertise in all aspects of production. That includes a mastery of the new raw materials, a complete understanding of currently available equipment, insight into the needed software, precision in performance prediction and more. Brightlands Materials Center combines TNO’s 20 years of additive manufacturing experience with the latest equipment and a highly skilled network of software and equipment experts to guide companies to the solutions they need to increase their competitive edge.

Whether in one-on-one collaboration or shared research projects, the experts at Brightlands Materials Center are eager to share their knowledge to propel industries into the future. It carries projects from the conceptual phases through proof of concept testing, development and validation, giving companies the confidence to take giant steps forward in sustainable design and production.

Exploring the possibilities

Brightlands Materials Center can help find solutions for some of the most pressing challenges that companies face. For example, it can identify the right materials to realise lightweight, strong structural components for the aerospace industry. Or custom-made prosthetics and orthotics that are designed to match each patient’s specific needs, physical demands and requirements. It can develop self-sensing materials that allow bridges and other infrastructure to alert municipalities of potential failure. Or develop the technology for a local, on-demand spare- part manufacturing process for the transport sector.

Whatever the engineering challenge, Brightlands Materials Center is ready to see if 3D printing can be your cutting-edge solution. Want to know what 3D printing can mean for your company? Contact us today to learn more.