3DPOD: Insight from 3D Printing Pros

Thomas Feldhausen works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) on hybrid manufacturing, DED, digital twins, and new manufacturing solutions. For years, he’s tried to marry traditional subtractive manufacturing with additive manufacturing for cost-effective, scalable production. Using simulations to improve results, improve tool pathing, and get better part properties, while using particle accelerators to improve results even more, has also been his bailiwick. Now Thomas is all about convergent manufacturing, and he explains how it differs from hybrid. This is a really great episode, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we liked making it. This episode of the 3DPOD is brought to you by ADDMAN, where advanced manufacturing meets mission-critical production. From additive manufacturing and advanced materials to precision machining and finishing, ADDMAN helps aerospace, defense, and space customers turn complex designs into production-ready hardware, built to perform when failure is not an option.  

Alexander Plotkowski is all about developing new alloys. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), he’s the Group Leader for Computational Coupled Physics within the Computational Sciences and Engineering Division. He’s done in-depth research on controlling grain patterns, tried to predict the microstructure of parts, helped develop tools to predict and validate simulations, and developed DuAlumin-3D. We learn more about that material, which is interesting for many different reasons. But we also explore the intersection of particle accelerators, AI, additive manufacturing, and industry. This episode of the 3DPOD is brought to you by ADDMAN, where advanced manufacturing meets mission-critical production. From additive manufacturing and advanced materials to precision machining and finishing, ADDMAN helps aerospace, defense, and space customers turn complex designs into production-ready hardware, built to perform when failure is not an option.  

Gordie Folin had deep experience in engineering at Pratt & Whitney, GE, and GE Aviation before becoming the Chief Product Officer at Beehive Industries. Among his achievements, he served as the Executive Director of the groundbreaking Catalyst engine program, which extensively used additive manufacturing. Now at Beehive, he’s in charge of making a family of 3D printed jet engines. Beehive is also scaling, placing significant orders for Nikon SLM Solutions and EOS equipment, buying machining companies, and industrializing the 3D Printing of relatively low-cost jet engines. We talk about how the firm is scaling; we learn about the smart things it is doing to help it grow and the incredible opportunity it’s taking on. This episode of the 3DPOD is brought to you by ADDMAN, where advanced manufacturing meets mission-critical production. From additive manufacturing and advanced materials to precision machining and finishing, ADDMAN helps aerospace, defense, and space customers turn complex designs into production-ready hardware, built to perform when failure is not an option.  

Dirk Simon had already spent years in the chemicals industry before joining and pioneering BASF‘s 3D printing effort. We get to hear how that firm looked at 3D printing and entered the market. We also look at Dirk’s time at Farsoon, where he pioneered their early entry into Europe and beyond. Then we talk about FKM and the economics of sintering. We discuss some history and look at when to use additive too before talking about how Dirk now wants to help people generate new businesses and grow new opportunities with his Square New Business venture. This episode of the 3DPOD is brought to you by HP Additive Manufacturing Solutions, leaders in industrial 3D printing. With multi-jet fusion and metal-jet technology, HP delivers speed, design freedom, and cost efficiency at scale, empowering manufacturers to produce sustainable end-use parts and transform how industries innovate.  

Stefan Joens of Elnik Systems sells ovens. Their debind and sintering equipment powers a lot of high-volume binder jet and MIM production. We learn about Elnik and its origins. But we also get a deep dive into sintering, debinding, shrinkage, and binder-jet part production. We talk about different parts, part sizes, where binder jet shines, and where it does not. We talk about the future of binder jetting but also of other processes such as bound filament. This is a super useful episode if you want to learn more about binder jetting or sintering in general. This episode of the 3DPOD is brought to you by Lincoln Electric Additive Solutions, the industry leader in large-scale 3D metal printing and operator of the world’s largest wire arc additive manufacturing facility. Backed by Lincoln Electric’s 130-plus years of deep expertise in welding, metallurgy, automation, and process control, Lincoln Electric Additive Solutions helps manufacturers push beyond the limits of traditional part production, enabling greater design flexibility, more agile sourcing strategies, and new possibilities for producing large, complex metal components.