Johannes Günther

Continuous 3D-printing for additive manufacturing

Purpose – This paper aims to present the results that can be achieved using continuous three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. Design/methodology/approach – In the first section, conventional additive manufacturing and continuous 3D-printing are described and compared against each other. Essential is the new approach to coat the particulate material and to print it on a tilted surface. For this special setup, theoretical considerations for sources of distortions are given. These considerations define the design of the test parts. For the evaluation of a tilted setup a prototype using large dimensions is shown. Of special interest is the exact transportation using a large mass of particulate material. Findings – The 3D-printing principle is suitable for tilted surfaces, making production without any downtime possible. The parts produced using the prototype continuous 3D-printer have sufficient accuracy for foundry use, although various considerations and the setup show that angular deflections can be c...