{"id":601547,"date":"2019-04-03T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=1aacb0ce6a5ec047832bdb03ae1eca35"},"modified":"2019-04-03T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T08:00:00","slug":"3d-printing-titanium-for-esas-athena-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=601547","title":{"rendered":"3D printing titanium for ESA\u2019s Athena"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\nA close-up view of laser melting being used to 3D print in titanium to produce test versions of the \u2018optic bench\u2019 at the heart of ESA\u2019s Athena X-ray observatory. A multi-axis robotic arm is being used to produce the complex structure, including deep pockets to place optical mirror modules.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe essential technological achievement is the fact that 3D printing takes place under local protective gas shielding, without a protective gas chamber,\u201d comments Andr\u00e9 Seidel, overseeing the project at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology in Germany.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis is enabled by a specially-developed process head called COAXShield which uses the noble gas argon to sweep titanium powder into the path of the laser, in the process protecting the newly-printed titanium from contact with the atmosphere.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThis gas protection enables a rapid change between additive manufacturing \u2013 laser metal deposition with powder \u2013 and subtractive manufacturing \u2013 as cryogenically cooled milling tool operated by a second robotic arm removes surplus titanium.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe optic bench itself is placed on a slowly moving 3.4-m diameter turntable between the two robotic arms. The end goal of this ESA Technology Development Element project is to produce a 3-m diameter optical bench, but in principle the procedure can be applied to a wide variety of sizes.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYou can see the metallic bright surface of the titanium, reflecting the honeycomb structure of the protective gas nozzle,\u201d adds Andr\u00e9. \u201cTaking account of this for laser melting was a very big challenge, and an absolute milestone in the project.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nCredit: Fraunhofer IWS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\nA close-up view of laser melting being used to 3D print in titanium to produce test versions of the ‘optic bench’ at the heart of ESA’s Athena X-ray observatory. A multi-axis robotic arm is being used to produce the complex structure, including deep pockets to place optical mirror modules.\n<\/p>\n

\n“The essential technological achievement is the fact that 3D printing takes place under local protective gas shielding, without a protective gas chamber,” comments André Seidel, overseeing the project at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology in Germany.\n<\/p>\n

\n“This is enabled by a specially-developed process head called COAXShield which uses the noble gas argon to sweep titanium powder into the path of the laser, in the process protecting the newly-printed titanium from contact with the atmosphere.”\n<\/p>\n

\nThis gas protection enables a rapid change between additive manufacturing – laser metal deposition with powder – and subtractive manufacturing – as cryogenically cooled milling tool operated by a second robotic arm removes surplus titanium.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe optic bench itself is placed on a slowly moving 3.4-m diameter turntable between the two robotic arms. The end goal of this ESA Technology Development Element project is to produce a 3-m diameter optical bench, but in principle the procedure can be applied to a wide variety of sizes.\n<\/p>\n

\n“You can see the metallic bright surface of the titanium, reflecting the honeycomb structure of the protective gas nozzle,” adds André. “Taking account of this for laser melting was a very big challenge, and an absolute milestone in the project.”\n<\/p>\n

\nCredit: Fraunhofer IWS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-601547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=601547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601548,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601547\/revisions\/601548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=601547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=601547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=601547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}