ImPURE
Injection Moulding Repurposing for Medical Supplies enabled by Additive Manufacturing
Conify’s Involvement:
In imPURE project a modular moulding system has been developed to help reduce the cost and enhance the product quality while allowing for fast IM line repurposing through the replacement of interchangeable core and cavity inserts. The idea is to provide a methodology for rapidly aligning needs in medical supply equipment in times of emergency such as COVID-19.
CONIFY employed its wire-based Directed Energy Deposition technology, using a 1.2kW 6-laser system from MELTIO, known for its time and cost-effective production capabilities to produce mould inserts for a finger pulse oximeter. A two-step process which combines additive and subtractive manufacturing is deemed necessary for tooling applications when utilizing wire-DED technique to obtain near-net-shape metallic parts with required tolerances (dimensional and surface finishing). In terms of production time needed, 9 hours of printing time were needed in average for producing each oximeter insert, while PBF technique requires several days, but offers the advantage of producing intricate designs with reduced post-processing needs. Stainless steel 420 wire material cost is another key-factor for assessing cost efficiency of the processes, where the cost for powder is at least 5-8 times higher in comparison to the corresponding wire feedstock (depending on supplier and ordered quantity, availability).
Conify’s Approach
CONIFY undertook the metal AM powder procurement and supply management, by mapping existing preparedness and response capacity of global powder supply chain in order to identify the most suitable procurement options in terms of quality/cost benefit and availability, and establish an agile and responsive powder supply chain from EU powder producers and atomization plants. Powder procurement was based on quality-cost-availability criteria, by efficient screening and characterizing samples from different suppliers and holistic quality analysis to ensure high- quality for AM materials & component manufacturing according to the requirements set from the end-users. Additionally, CONI employed in-house dedicated powder refurbishment & recycling protocols and facilities to recycle and rejuvenate un-fused metal powders from AM machine owners to restore virgin-quality properties and provide an alternative route for material supply.
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Our Case Study was featured in MELTIO’s White Paper
Conify’s Publications
Article in MDPI – Metals Journal:
Project Main Results
