Hexagon advances Directed Energy Deposition additive manufacturing

Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division has revealed new developments that advance the application of Directed Energy Deposition (DED) technologies to industrial applications, including collaborations with printer manufacturers pro-beam, Sciaky, DM3D, Gefertec and Meltio, they announced. DED incorporates several metal 3D-printing technologies used to produce parts by melting and fusing material as it is deposited. Applicable to a broad range of part sizes, it is attractive for the cost-effective production of large parts—from one to six or more meters—that may be impossible to manufacture using powder bed fusion (PBF) technologies. Sharing core technologies with mature coating and welding processes, DED is rapidly gaining traction for military and aerospace Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) because it can repair or rebuild high-end equipment, such as turbine blades, notes Hexagon. It also offers innovation potential within hybrid manufacturing processes, where it can add material and features to workpieces finished with wire EDM or milling processes.