Centrale Nantes acquires a new additive manufacturing machine

The new additive manufacturing machine complements the experimental facilities already present on the school's Rapid Manufacturing Platform.
 

It is capable of producing more precise parts, both in terms of size and surface finish, thereby making it possible to work at the micron scale.

- Prof. Jean-Yves Hascoët, head of the platform

High-grade materials such as titanium alloys are used to manufacture the components.
The machine works by placing the metal powders on a plate, a laser then melts the powders that are necessary for the producing the part and those that are not melted are set aside and then recycled and reused.

Two engineers have been recruited for the Rapid Manufacturing Platform to work with this new machine: Carolina Navarro Valero (in April 2021) and Luiz Eduardo Motta Bier (in September 2021), Centrale Nantes alumni.

Prototype parts already produced

This equipment has already been used to make some test parts, particularly in the field of health engineering. The research team led by Professor Jean-Yves Hascoët has manufactured a titanium mandible part.

In some cancers, surgeons have to cut away part of the mandible, the bony part of the jaw, and use another piece of bone from the body to replace the removed part. The new SLM machine at Centrale Nantes can be used to manufacture an external part for the graft, thus avoiding the need to remove a piece of bone from the patient. To avoid any risk of rejection, high-grade materials such as titanium are used in the manufacturing process. The uneven surface part of the part allows the bone to rebuild around it.

The 3DSystems SLM machine was financed by the European Union via the ERDF fund, by Centrale Nantes, and by the research projects of the Rapid Manufacturing research group in the Research Institute in Civil and Mechanical Engineering (GeM).