ORNL and Cincinnati Inc. sign an agreement on additive manufacturing

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Nanthakumar Victor Emmanuel, P.Eng Leave a comment

Cincinnati Incorporated (Harrison, Ohio) and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tenn.) have signed a partnership agreement to develop a new large-scale additive manufacturing system capable of printing polymer components up to 10 times larger than currently producible, and at speeds 200 to 500 times faster than existing additive machines. The cooperative research and development agreement – signed at ORNL’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility in Oak Ridge, TN – aims to introduce significant new capabilities to the U.S. machine tool sector, which supplies manufacturing technology to a wide range of industries including automotive, aerospace, appliance and robotics. A prototype of the large-scale additive machine is in development using the chassis and drives of Cincinnati’s gantry-style laser cutting system as the base, with plans to incorporate a high-speed cutting tool, pellet feed mechanism and control software for additional capability.