CERN’s Additive Manufacturing Workshop Chooses Simufact Additive for the Simulation of Metal Additive Manufacturing Processes

The Mechanical and Materials group at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has chosen Simufact Additive to simulate the Selective Laser Melting process for predicting the deformation of parts for High Energy Physics application, i.e. superconducting magnets and Radio-Frequency (RF) components.

“Predicting deformation is key to achieve first-time-right accurate parts, especially for parts made with expensive materials such as niobium developed for Superconducting RF application,” says Romain Gérard, AM engineer, CERN.

“We regard CERN as a flagship customer because of the level of expertise they instill in our growing academic community,” says Dr. Hendrik Schafstall, Managing Director and CTO at simufact engineering.

With only 15 months after market launch, Simufact has built up a broad user base for Simufact Additive with more than 60 customers that include more than 20 customers in academic research and other customers from the aerospace, automotive, medical technology, and AM services industries.

Simufact simulation products support customers all around the world in the design and optimization of manufacturing processes, relying on Simufact Forming for forming simulations, Simufact Welding for welding simulations, and Simufact Additive for additive manufacturing.

Simufact Additive is a powerful and scalable process simulation environment for ‘first time right’ optimization of laser powder bed fusion processes. Features include simulation of all the key AM process steps starting with ‘printing’ of the part; followed by heat treatment, cutting the part off the build plate and removal of support structures, plus heat and pressure combined processes (HIP). The simulation of 3D printing processes provides information about distortions and residual stresses in the component. The results serve as a basis for the user to meet production tolerances with appropriate countermeasures before the part is printed.

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Simufact Engineering and its project partners EDAG Engineering and voestalpine Additive Manufacturing Center have received the “German Innovation Award” for the LightHinge + project in the category “Excellence in Business to Business / Automotive Technologies”.

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About CERN

CERN is a non-profit European intergovernmental organisation with 22 Member States. It has its seat in Geneva, Switzerland, but straddles the Swiss-French border. Its objective is to provide for collaboration among European States in the field of high-energy particle physics research and to this end it designs, constructs, and runs the necessary particle accelerators and the associated experimental areas. About 7,000 physicists from more than 500 research institutes worldwide use the CERN installations for their experiments.

Sources: Simufact