Bosch invests €6m in metal 3D printing centre

Bosch has invested almost €6 million in a new metal 3D printing centre at its Nuremberg plant in Germany, which will be used for volume production of highly complex shapes, from housings to engine blocks.

With this investment, Bosch claims it is the first European Tier-1 supplier to have a facility in this performance class.

The new Nikon SLM Solutions NXG XII 600 metal 3D printer is intended to accelerate development cycles, especially for metal parts, which take a long time to make using conventional manufacturing processes.

This includes components for hydrogen applications, motor housings for electric cars, components for e-axles, and even engine blocks for racing.

At full capacity, Bosch says it can produce metal parts with a total weight of around 10,000 kilograms in under a year, achieving speeds of up to 1,000 cubic centimetres per hour.

The main aim of this faster component production is to cut the time to market.

“With this facility, we are setting the highest standards in metal 3D printing. In volume production, this will open up completely new possibilities for us,” said the technical plant manager Jörg Luntz.

“We want to be faster than with traditional manufacturing processes and use this technology to get products to market more quickly.

“Even today, only a few companies can produce technology on an industrial scale the way Bosch does. We’re now going one step further, taking volume production in metal 3D printing to the automotive level.”

Working from a computer-aided design file developed in advance, its 12 lasers melt metal powder layer by layer to create highly complex shapes. The new metal 3D printer is up to five times faster than the 3D printing systems that have been used up to now.

Complex structures such as interior or curved channels, which are simply not feasible with conventional milling processes, can now be produced without any problem. While drilling around corners is not possible using conventional methods, Bosch says 3D printing makes light work of this. The printer can produce unfinished parts on demand with no need for tooling.

And because 3D printing slashes raw-material waste to almost zero, it also conserves resources.

An example of the new possibilities that the 3D printing process opens up is the engine block: with conventional manufacturing, it can take up to three years to get from the first draft design to volume production.

Completing the casting mold for the engine block alone can take up to 18 months. 3D printing does away with this step.

The design data is transmitted directly to the printer, eliminating the need for complex molds. The 3D printer delivers a finished engine block after just a few days, thus greatly reducing overall product development time.