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HP METAL JET. REINVENT OPPORTUNITIES

Propel your business with the most advanced metals 3D printing technology for mass production

For more than 30 years, HP inkjet technologies have disrupted and led a broad range of printing markets. In 2014, HP introduced a revolutionary 3D printing technology for plastics: HP Multi Jet Fusion.2 HP Multi Jet Fusion places drops of functional liquid agents onto a powder bed to control the physical properties and features of plastic parts point-bypoint. It leverages HP’s deep assets in imaging and printing to take the digital transformation of printing off the page and into a three-dimensional world of highly-functional, high-value manufactured items.

HP Multi Jet Fusion offers high build quality, speed, and at the lowest cost relative to competitive 3D printing solutions in the marketplace today.2 These breakthroughs in quality and speed will accelerate the adoption of 3D printing to create a digital transformation of manufacturing as widespread and profound as the way HP Thermal Inkjet changed the landscape of conventional printing markets and applications. As with other HP products, HP Jet Fusion 3D printers offer users HP’s key values of reliability, ease of use, versatility, and an end-to-end digital workflow.

HP Metal Jet leverages and extends the workflows and technologies that HP developed for printing 3D plastics into metals with new functional agents, processes, and printing hardware.

HP Metal Jet solutions break through the economic, design, and time constraints of traditional methods for metal part production while delivering quality, productivity, and cost beyond the capabilities of existing 3D printing technologies for metals.3

Using HP Thermal Inkjet to precisely deliver HP Binding Agent to a powder metal bed and industry-standard metal injection molding (MIM) metal powders for low cost, HP Metal Jet is a binder jet technology that features:

• Multiple parts produced at the same time, or large parts, in a powder bed 430 x 320 x 200 mm (16.9 x 12.6 x 7.9 in).

• Parts can be arranged freely in multiple levels in the powder bed to optimize packing density, productivity, and cost.

• No build plate required, compared with selective laser melting (SLM).

• Low-cost, high-quality final parts for serial production up to 100,000 parts.

• Best-in-class price-productivity.

• 1200 x 1200 dpi addressability in a layer 50 to 100 microns thick.

• Finished parts with isotropic properties that meet or exceed ASTM and MPIF Standards.

• High reusability of materials can reduce materials cost and waste without compromising part quality.

• Density after sintering > 93%, similar to MIM.

With a design and technology foundation proven in generations of HP’s commercial and industrial printing solutions, HP

Multi Jet Fusion and HP Metal Jet printers deliver industrial productivity with reliable, consistent, and repeatable results.

Whereas manufacturing by milling, grinding, and cutting removes material from a workpiece, additive manufacturing—“3D printing”—is a digital technology that creates objects by selective material addition. This allows each 3D-printed part to be unique in the same way that each page printed by an inkjet or laser printer can have unique content. 100% variable content page to page and part to part is a capability that digital technologies bring to 2D and 3D printing.

Prime applications for 3D-printed metal parts include the functional and aesthetic components for automotive, medical, industrial, and 3Cs (computers, cellphones, and consumer electronics). These parts—with complex internal and external geometries—can be produced in runs of 1000s or can be customized, high-value one-of-a-kind products.

3D metal printing is targeted to compete with metal injection molding, investment casting, and press and sinter processes.

Before 3D printing, parts with complex surfaces, moving elements,7 and internal fluid passages were assembled from subcomponents that were aligned and assembled with fasteners and/or adhesives. In conventional parts—especially those designed to handle air and liquids—joints and sealing surfaces may be points where mechanical failure and leakage occurs. Because 3D printing builds objects from a stack of thin cross-sections, complex parts can be produced either as a monolithic structure or from fewer subcomponents. 3D printing has the potential to simplify design and manufacturing processes and to reduce processing time and costs. Parts can be made by 3D printing that cannot be made by other methods, and this creates many new possibilities for innovations in design, form, and function.

To meet the needs of a broad range of applications, a 3D printing solution should offer the desirable attributes of high productivity, low cost of hardware, low cost per part, high build quality, and choices in materials and material properties for strength, elasticity, and other properties. While commercial 3D printers have been available for more than 30 years, adoption of 3D printing has been limited to niche markets and applications because all of these attributes have not been available together from a single technology or 3D printing solution. HP innovation is changing this.

HP Multi Jet Fusion and HP Metal Jet were conceived to overcome the tradeoffs and constraints limiting current 3D technologies. Offering speed, quality, strength, and novel functionalities, HP products will accelerate the adoption of 3D manufacturing across a wide range of industries and applications where plastic and metal parts are required by the application.

HP’s vision is to reinvent part design and manufacturing with streamlined workflows and new capabilities for 3D printing. The supply chain for finished, high-value items will be fundamentally changed by the ability to manufacture parts on-demand and where they are needed. HP’s Open Platform approach will break down barriers to the adoption of 3D printing through collaborative innovations in materials, printing hardware, sintering solutions, and design and production software.

HP Metal Jet Technology HP Metal Jet technology drives automotive production forward for Volkswagen through GKN

Details

  • 1501 Page Mill Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA
  • Ricardo Garcia Rubio

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