Renowned additive manufacturing expert Dr. Ingomar Kelbassa of Fraunhofer ILT, will provide a keynote address on laser AM and 3D printing in the Laser Technology Showcase theater on the exhibit floor of the fourth annual Lasers for Manufacturing Event® (LME®) on Sept. 24 in Schaumburg, IL.
Kelbassa, a frequent speaker at LIA events, is also serving as general chair of LIA’s seventh annual Laser Additive Manufacturing (LAM®) Workshop in March 2015. He was also part of the team at Germany’s Fraunhofer ILT that won an Aviation Week innovation award in 2012 for the institute’s additively manufactured 80-blade BLISK, or blade-integrated disk.
“From the material point of view, from the maturity point of view, from the technology readiness point of view,” additive techniques like selective laser melting are ready for industrial implementation, Kelbassa asserts. His address at LME will emphasize to attendees the key tenets of additive manufacturing: “Complexity for free (and) individualization for free.”
With more functioning parts being produced with AM in the automotive and aerospace industries — not to mention the customized dental and medical implants that are becoming staples in health care — he has said AM-specific powders and improved CAD are essential to this revolutionary arena. Another vital element of viable additive manufacturing is a well-designed process chain, a topic Kelbassa has emphasized at prior LIA events.
“We’re not talking about rapid prototyping any longer; we are talking about rapid manufacturing, out of nickel-based alloys, out of titanium, out of any kind of ceramics,” Kelbassa has affirmed. “This is a paradigm shift in manufacturing. Since the Stone Age, we have been producing parts subtractively; we are removing material. You are throwing away 90 percent. This is not material- or cost effective and costs you a lot of time. Now we are talking about building up the part from scratch.”
Whether it be through a powder-bed or a powder-fed process, additive manufacturing now allows parts to be designed for optimum strength and weight using previously unrealizable shapes. Because of that, “we need a new generation of engineers who can think additively,” Kelbassa noted at LAM 2014 in Houston earlier this year.
Kelbassa’s keynote address will be one of four at LME 2014, along with basic courses on types of lasers, laser manufacturing systems and how to use them profitably, and laser safety. The conference will also feature tutorials on design for welding and an overview of laser additive manufacturing systems.
For more information on LME 2014 and to register, visit www.laserevent.org.
About LIA
The Laser Institute of America (LIA) is the professional society for laser applications and safety serving the industrial, educational, medical, research and government communities throughout the world since 1968. www.lia.org, 13501 Ingenuity Drive, Ste 128, Orlando, FL 32826, +1.407.380.1553.
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