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AM metal component for limited production vehicles

Context

The increasing complexity of vehicles on the road requires the automotive sector to modify current production processes by enhancing flexibility, adaptability, and performance. These aspects, linked to the need for component lightening, have driven Italdesign, a leader in the development and production of cutting-edge mobility solutions, to test Additive Manufacturing in a production context, analyzing its costs and benefits for components currently made with traditional technologies and multiple process steps. The project’s goal was to leverage innovative technologies like additive manufacturing to simplify and reduce the development time of automotive components.

Solution

Through the case of a high-performance automotive radiator support ad alte prestazioni, the company applied Design for Additive Manufacturing with the aim of completely revolutionizing the component and fully exploiting the potential of this technology. The project’s objective aligns with the intention to replace a part already in production using current technologies (trimming, stamping, bending, welding, etc.) with a part engineered to be subsequently developed and produced with additive technologies. This represents a significant production advantage in terms of:

  • defining the geometry and optimal decomposition of the part
  • choosing the most suitable specific material
  • topological optimization

Impact

Thanks to greater design “freedom,” it was possible to adapt an existing component to a client’s requirements, increasing business opportunities, reducing development times, and producing a product with technical characteristics equal to or even better than traditional market offerings. This flexibility also impacts economic and environmental sustainability.
In particular, it was possible to achieve:

  • reduction of material waste: from the initial 16 parts to assemble to only 6 parts in the optimized version, consequently reducing the number of necessary welds
  • reduction of carbon emissions linked to fewer processes and the centralization of the production process
  • reduction that resulted in a lower impact of the component, throughout its life cycle, on parameters such as vehicle consumption and emissions: the first prototype achieved a weight reduction of about 15%
  • increase in stiffness by 53%
  • opening up a new capability to create on-demand spare parts to eliminate or reduce inventory

Funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU

Client

Italdesign

Sector

Automotive

Technological area

Additive Manufacturing

Technologies

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF)

Field Expertise

Training, design, prototyping, business case

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