From May 7 to 9, 2024, TCT Asia — Asia's 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing Exhibition, one of the world's three major professional additive manufacturing expos, was successfully held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai). At this high-profile industry event, Aerospace Engineering Equipment (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. (AEE) showcased its innovative friction stir solid-state additive manufacturing technology and application samples, demonstrating China's R&D strength in the field of additive manufacturing to the world.

Friction stir solid-state additive manufacturing is a revolutionary additive manufacturing technology. It uses friction stir heat source to plasticize solid materials and realize efficient material deposition. Compared with traditional additive manufacturing technologies, it delivers higher deposition efficiency and superior material performance. Adopting metal rods as raw materials also greatly cuts down the cost of additive manufacturing materials. This technology boasts outstanding advantages in producing medium and large components above centimeter scale, and is particularly suitable for light metals such as aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy and titanium alloy. It enables additive manufacturing of dissimilar metals and hard-to-weld metals, and also provides a new approach for preparing metal composite materials and functionally graded materials.

At the exhibition, AEE displayed a full range of parts manufactured with this technology, including large aerospace connecting rings, motor housings for military vehicles, high-strength aluminum gamma frames, copper-aluminum battery poles, as well as aluminum and aluminum-copper sputtering targets. Various structural test pieces made of aluminum alloy, titanium alloy, copper alloy and nickel-based superalloy were also on show. These exhibits fully presented the unique strengths of the technology and AEE's profound expertise in additive manufacturing. Many visitors stopped to view the displays and showed strong interest in AEE's technologies and products.

AEE's professional technical team held in-depth discussions with on-site visitors. They elaborated on the working principle, characteristics and application scenarios of friction stir solid-state additive manufacturing, and answered all kinds of questions raised by attendees. Such open exchanges helped visitors gain a thorough understanding of AEE's technologies and products, and also forged closer ties with partners across the industry.

To date, AEE, in collaboration with the Macao Institute for Development and Quality (IDQ), has developed three series of additive manufacturing equipment: friction stir solid-state additive manufacturing workstations, general-purpose solid-state additive manufacturing machines and gantry moving gantry additive manufacturing equipment. The equipment features automatic feeding to achieve seamless connection and continuous deposition of metal rods. It can real-time monitor temperature, torque and pressure at the tool end, and is equipped with force and temperature sensing functions to realize closed-loop control of force and torque during the whole solid-state manufacturing process, breaking the technological monopoly of foreign brands. The fully self-developed control system and supporting software support model reading and slicing, integrated printing strategy, automatic path planning, auto G-code programming and digital twin functions, greatly enhancing the core competitiveness of the products. In addition, the company has developed complete additive manufacturing processes for aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy, copper alloy, titanium alloy and other materials. The maximum deposition efficiency for aluminum alloy can reach 40kg per hour.

This exhibition facilitated in-depth communication and cooperation between AEE and domestic and international partners, bringing more opportunities for its development in additive manufacturing. Meanwhile, AEE kept abreast of the latest trends and developments of global additive manufacturing technologies, which provides valuable reference for its future layout.