China3D printingNet, April 9th, the Indian Navy has cooperated with India3D printingThe service bureau think3D cooperated to help them produce on-demand spare parts through additive manufacturing.
Due to the use of old imported machinery, these machinery often have problems for the Indian Navy.The Indian Navy cooperated with think3D to try to replace3D printingSpare parts and replace as needed to solve this problem. think3D has provided various3D printingSpare parts, all parts have been successfully tested and integrated into its machinery.A special case study shared by the company involved the use of3D printingReplace the centrifugal pump impeller, which is a key part of ship operation.
Centrifugal pump impeller on navy ship. Photos taken by think3D.
Difficulties in sourcing parts for old machines
Most of the machines on naval ships are very old and imported from other countries. Therefore, whenever the parts are damaged, the procurement of spare parts for these machines can be a long process, and there will be a significant delay before the parts are received. For the Navy, this price can be painful because it keeps the machine idle before replacing spare parts. The Navy urgently needs to quickly replace the impellers of centrifugal pumps on ships. This is a good example.
The impeller is a centrifugal pump is a rotating part. It is responsible for transferring energy from the motor to the fluid being pumped by accelerating the fluid outward from the center of rotation. On ships, it is used to import seawater to various parts of the ship to meet conventional water demand. Impellers usually have different shapes and sizes according to the amount of liquid to be pumped. They need to rotate at high speed for a long time.
The failure of these impellers caused major problems for the Indian Navy. These failures are usually caused by the displacement of the impeller eye during rotation and foreign objects in the sea water that hit the impeller. When the impeller rotates at a high speed, the above-mentioned problems often occur. The replacement parts of these impellers involve a sand casting manufacturing process, which usually requires a turnaround time of 3 months to produce a new impeller. There are multiple such pumps and impellers on each ship, and continuous failures have created major obstacles for the Indian Navy to perform routine missions.
In order to find an alternative manufacturing process that can quickly produce these impellers and reduce the cost of ownership, the Indian Navy3D printingDetermine the possible solution and contact think3D.
Reverse engineering and3D printingimpeller
think3D was established in 2014 to improve3D printingAnd its market awareness in potential applications in India.The company also offers3D printing, Design, scanning and mass production and other manufacturing process services.It also operates a US$6 million project in the AP MedTech area3D printingFacilities for medical equipment manufacturing, AP MedTech area is the medical equipment manufacturing park in Andhra Pradesh, India.
After contacting the Indian Navy, the think3D team visited the ships to learn more about the problem and collect data about the impeller, including the required material properties and boundary conditions.Its first step involves performing the impeller3D scanningAnd reverse engineer its design. Use EinScan Pro+ 3D scanninginstrumentDo this with CREO to create a CAD model based on the scanned data.Then, think3D used ANSYS software to investigate which materials and3D printingThe process will benefit the application. Tested the applicability of various materials (such as nylon composite materials, glass fiber nylon, PA12 and other conventional plastics).
Reverse engineer the impeller. Photos taken by think3D.
An important requirement of the impeller material is its damping capacity, which refers to its ability to convert vibration energy into other forms of energy without breaking the parts. In addition, the parts must have sufficient elasticity to withstand vibration. This excludes various high-strength materials because they are very brittle, while think3D identifies materials with good damping properties and elasticity in the final part. think3D has chosen to keep the specific materials used confidential.
Using HP’s Multi Jet Fusion technology, think3D 3D can print impellers with the required mechanical properties. It is then CNC machined and a metal bush is inserted to establish an interface between the metal rod and the plastic component, which is necessary to rotate the impeller without damaging the parts. After testing on the ship, the impeller showed sufficient performance within the required hours.use3D printing, Parts that originally took 3 months to produce can be produced in 3 days, but the production cost of the parts has been reduced by 40%. Compared with traditionally manufactured impellers weighing between 8 kg and 9 kg,3D printingThe weight of the impeller is also lighter, only 1 kg.along with3D printingWith the successful completion of the impeller, think3D is now focusing on building a digital repository of impellers for the Indian Navy.After establishing the database, the company has promised to3D printingThe impellers needed are supplied to the navy.
3D printingVersion (right)” alt=”Original impeller part (left), next to3D printingVersion (right)” width=”620″ height=”309″ />
Original impeller part (left), next to3D printingVersion (right). Photos taken by think3D.
In addition, think3D also explained in detail how it cooperated with the Indian Navy to discuss a way to3D printingThe machine is installed on the ship so that the CAD design of the spare parts can be pre-loaded when the spare parts are needed at sea. Enter the machine. In most cases, this will require the Indian Navy to airlift the parts to the ship or ship the ship back to shore to assemble the parts, both of which are costly. think3D is therefore building a customized one for the Indian Navy3D printingThe printer is capable of additive manufacturing under offshore conditions.
maritime3D printing
Recently, the maritime industry has increased3D printingThe use of technology to solve similar problems encountered by the Indian Navy is mainly around the supply of spare parts. For example, dry bulk shipping company Berge Bulk needed a solution to produce spare drain plugs for its ships at a faster and cheaper rate. Wilhelmsen, a global maritime industry group, and Ivaldi Group, an additive manufacturing service bureau, jointly printed a set of drain plugs for 3D Berge Bulk, thereby reducing the cost and time of producing drain plugs through traditional processes.
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