How big-area 3D printing evolved from ORNL research into new industry

Additive Engineering Solutions, an Ohio-based company that’s now a leader in large-format 3D printing, began as an idea sparked by research at the Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, or MDF, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

In 2014, ORNL, Cincinnati Incorporated and other industry partners 3D printed a car on the show floor of the International Manufacturing Technology Show, or IMTS, a trade event featuring the latest advancements in manufacturing. Austin Schmidt, then an engineer at Caterpillar, stood captivated amid the clamor of the conference. The demonstration offered more than just a glimpse of innovation — it showed the potential of large-format polymer printing.

Before long, he’d gathered with his Caterpillar colleagues at the MDF to 3D print a mock-up of a bulldozer frame. After seeing how useful this 2,000-pound mock-up was for assembly verification, Schmidt and his team wanted to continue working with the MDF on more large polymer prints. But the MDF’s mission is to conduct research to solve problems, not to manufacture on demand.

“I like to say, ‘Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s MDF will print one part for anyone, but two parts for no one,’” said Schmidt. “At the time I thought, ‘If they’re turning away a big company like Caterpillar, who else are they turning away?’”

Schmidt checked with Cincinnati Incorporated to see if they could help but discovered they also didn’t fulfill orders — their focus was on making the printers. 

Schmidt mentioned this gap in the market to his friend, Andrew Bader, who had industry experience through his family’s metalworking company. The two had already dabbled in small-scale 3D printing as a business venture — why not also start a company that could offer large-format prints as a regular service?

The first step for their startup, named Additive Engineering Solutions, or AES, was to raise enough money to buy a big area additive manufacturing, or BAAM, printer — a machine large enough to host a small dinner party inside. Developed in cooperation with ORNL, the printer was adapted from Cincinnati’s line of laser cutters that slice metal. Turning it into a BAAM printer started with trading out the laser head for a polymer extruder.

Polymer 3D printing works by streaming melted plastic out of a nozzle. One layer of the hot polymer builds on top of another as the nozzle moves back and forth to form the shape. For BAAM printing, the table the polymer is laid on moves in a third direction, up or down, as the print builds. This action is controlled by “Slicer” computer software developed by ORNL researchers.

“The Slicer software program takes an object, ‘slices’ it into layers, then fits toolpaths to each layer,” said Alex Roschli, ORNL lead software engineer for Slicer. “The toolpaths determine the motions of the 3D printer and where the material is extruded.”

For AES, the biggest challenge in starting their new venture was learning and adapting the Slicer instructions to control the BAAM system and figure out the exact right geometries of the prints.

Schmidt and Bader have continued to collaborate with ORNL for software help, and they also suggest new software features. “We probably have talked to ORNL at least on a monthly basis for almost 10 years,” said Bader.

One issue AES is working through now is to solve a “Goldilocks” problem with polymer 3D printing. “The printing can’t be too hot or cold, or we end up scrapping the whole job,” said Schmidt. “Something that took 24 hours to print, you could lose the whole thing at hour 22.”

That’s because if a print is stopped to fix something, the top layer starts to cool off, and the hot plastic won’t form a strong bond on the lower cooled layer. The Goldilocks problem also limits how big a print can be, because the bigger the print, the higher the risk that the lower layer will cool off before the nozzle swings back around to lay down a new layer. But the layers also can’t be too hot, or they could melt into a distorted heap.

One way to solve this problem is to change the angle of approach, tilting the nozzle to a 45-degree angle. “Switching over to 45 degrees, your tool paths for each layer can be shortened, so you have more room to work with that Goldilocks effect,” said Bader.

Besides saving time, a 45-degree print can make new types of products, such as bowl-shaped items that would have been impossible to print before. But this solution generated a new host of issues.

“One of the problems is that by changing the angle, now your machine could run into the print bed” said Roschli. “There were other geometry issues too. Creating new software instructions for the machine to run with a 45-degree angled nozzle was a surprisingly complicated problem.”

While working through such software improvements with ORNL, Schmidt and Bader have slowly been taking over the BAAM market.

“Our company now has four out of the 15 BAAMs ever made,” said Bader. “We’ve become a world leader in large-area polymer additive manufacturing.” Cincinnati Inc. has stopped producing the printers, so now AES is a go-to resource for BAAM support for other companies.

AES is also growing its physical footprint, having broken ground this summer on new factory space.

Schmidt said ORNL’s support was essential to bringing their idea for a new kind of company to life. “It wasn't just that they showed us how to use the machine, they pulled together the whole ecosystem needed to make it successful,” he said.

Thanks to its many industry partnerships, MDF can act as a matchmaking service for manufacturers, with each connection leading to new opportunities. AES now regularly 3D prints big parts for aerospace, defense and construction.

“Large scale polymer is still pretty niche, so it's not a massive market, but it's growing every year,” said Bader. “Within the last couple years, we're really hitting our stride. And that's because the market itself is finally catching up.”

The MDF, supported by DOE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, is a nationwide consortium of collaborators working with ORNL to innovate, inspire and catalyze the transformation of U.S. manufacturing. Partner with the MDF.

MDF is the model for the national laboratory system’s C4 Partnering Model, which seeks to increase cross-sector collaboration and rapid technology development, decreasing a technology’s time-to-market and enabling a strong regional manufacturing and commercialization ecosystem. Learn more about C4 partnering opportunities across the United States.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.