WorldWide Drilling Resource

The Use of 3-D Printing in Engineering by Ian Hargraves, Assistant Design Engineer, Flomatic ® Corporation It’s been five years since I finished college and began working in the valve industry. In those five years, the most beneficial technology to me has been 3-D printing. I’ve always been a hands-on person, so being able to print an object and hold it in my hands was huge. At Flomatic ® Corporation, we use FDM (fused depo- sition modeling) printers the most, as they can quickly produce accurate parts. FDM printers take a large spool of material, usual ly plastic (I’ve heard there’s one that uses chocolate now) and heat it to its melting point. Once the material is hot enough, it’s extruded onto a flatbed as a small layer. Once a layer is co mplete, the bed will drop vertically and print over the last layer. This process of ad ding layers might go on for another 50-1000 layers depending on the size of the pa rt. We currently use FDM to print custom fixtures for assembly or testing. With 3-D pri nting, you’re not limited to machining limitations and you can print individual and cu stom parts for everything, no minimum run is required. The other type of printer we have in-house is a SLA (stereolithography) printer. Th e process of building layers is similar, but instead of extruding material, this pro cess cures an ultraviolet (UV) resin. It begins with a pool of UV-sensitive resin wh ich is hit with a laser to harden a layer. Once the layer is hardened, the bed will mo ve vertically and the next layer will be lasered to the last. Once complete, the part wil l need to cure once more in UV light to finalize the part. SLA usually takes longer, bu t you can gain incredibly accurate and strong parts with this method. The parts we pri nt using this method are used for testing new ideas or design changes. An addi- tio nal benefit about SLA is with a little post sanding and polishing, you are able to ge t transparent parts which we use to show off our internals or see how the flow is. Right now, 3-D printing is still largely about prototyping and fixtures, but with technology such as direct metal laser sinte ring (metal 3-D printing) becoming more available, we’ll probably see it transition to production - hopefully within a decade. 21 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® MAY 2019 Ian with the MakerBot Replicator, the company’s FDM printer. WTR The Energy Exposition will celebrate 20 years on June 26-27, at the Wyoming Center in Gillette, Wyoming. The Expo has educated tens of thousands of attendees over the last 19 years on procedures, technology, safety, environmental practices, and equipment used in the gas and oil industries. The exhibit hall with a showcase of products and equipment will be open both Wednesday and Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Wednesday’s symposium is a full day of short courses followed by the networking dinner and entertainment to celebrate “Like it’s 1999”! Get all the details at www.energyexposition.com Where are you planning to go? How about including this show: Join WWDR See more events at www.worldwidedrillingresource.com online issue.