EINDHOVEN, Netherlands, Mar 21, 2019 – During the awards dinner of the 7th edition of the Additive World Conference, Chairman of the Jury, Ultimaker’s Steven van de Staak, announced K3D and Obasogie Okpamen as winners of the Additive World Design for Additive Manufacturing Challenge 2019. All finalists, three in the student category and three professionals, pitched their designs in front of the 5-member jury. After deliberation they made a unanimous and well-advised selection in both categories. The winning designs, a ‘Dough Cutting Knife’ and a ‘Twin Spark Engine Connection Rod’, are inspiring use cases of industrial 3D metal printing.
In the student category the first prize went to Obasogie Okpamen from The Landmark University in Nigeria. He redesigned a connection rod for an Alfa Romeo 75 Twin Spark Turbo engine. Although the design was not completely tested yet, the Jury appointed him winner because of the example it sets.
Huge amounts of used cars that are written off in Europe, are shipped to Africa to have a second life. This results in a high demand of spare parts to sustain this life. This relatively simple application shows a huge potential in the spare parts market. Additive Manufacturing allows for distributed localized manufacturing of spare parts in many more categories than the automotive after-market.
The winner of the professional category is K3D of The Netherlands. K3D CTO Jaap Bulsink. Presented the dough cutting knife they developed for bakery equipment world leader and mother company, Kaak Group. This real life product and case study combines an amazing number of advantages 3D metal printing offers, like weight reduction, part count reduction, porous structures, integrated channels, increased performance and substantial cost reduction with a very practical and original application. The business case is very strong, especially because of the weight saving that results in higher moving speeds of the knives which allows for the saving of 2 out of 8 robots in a production line. What makes this case study even more impressive is the integration of mechanical parts, a spring leaf and bearing and the fact that it is completely designed for AM. The K3D team designed a part that can be printed without any support structure, even threads of the interface with the robot are printed and can be used without post-machining. Finally, the porous knife blade, created by an inventive and custom parameter set, improves the functionality substantially by creating an air shield around the blade.
All finalists received a free 1 year licence of Altair Inspire and Autodesk Netfabb software. Obasogie Okpamen, as student winner, will receive an Ultimaker 2+ printer while the team of K3D won an Ultimaker 3.
More information and a picture of the winners and the jury can be found on the Press Page on the www.additiveindustries.com website.
About Additive World
Additive World strives to connect the dots in industrial 3D printing. We want to create a platform to meet colleagues from your industry and experts in your field of use. To exchange insights, share experiences and accelerate the learning curve to a mature technology. Additive World is an initiative of Additive Industries. For more information, visit: www.additiveworld.com.
About Design for Additive Manufacturing Challenge
In order to grow the number of examples and inspire many other industries to develop dedicated applications for industrial 3D printing, Additive Industries has launched the Additive World Design for Additive Manufacturing Challenge 2019 at the renowned Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven in October 2018. Competing in two categories, both professionals and students were encouraged to redesign an existing conventional part of a machine or product for 3D printing. The winners will be announced at the Additive World Conference Award Dinner on March 20, 2019 in Eindhoven.
About Additive Industries
Additive Industries is accelerating industrial additive manufacturing of high quality, functional, metal parts by offering a modular end-to-end 3D printing system including a seamlessly integrated information platform to high end and demanding industrial markets. With substantially improved reproducibility, productivity, and flexibility, Additive Industries redefines the business case for series production of additive manufacturing applications in aerospace, automotive, medical technology and high-tech equipment.