The new frontier of the automotive test: the supportive structure in additive.

In the last few years, the automotive industry had faced new challenges to keep up with new approaches to mobility and daily life conception. If in the past the car was a simple transportation made to bring us in little time from a place to another, nowadays it is lived like a life-experience and, moreover, a social status. In this sense, productive companies, had to make a qualitative leap, developing new testing knowledge and capabilities, which can guarantee safety, quality and reliability. All the sectors, which assist automotive design and the its realization, have begun to think to innovative ways to find efficient solutions, perfect for the new challenges and requests.

The collaboration between MPLD, company which designs and realizes structures for tests of components’ qualification, and ZARE, company specialized in quick prototipation, is inserted in this context.

Marco Sala, MPLD Chief Executive, affirms: “the trait d’union is the attention to renovation and to the concept of innovation”. This is the value that has promoted the study and the development of a unique solution in the automotive tests’ world; the support to execute vibration and water retenction tests on a taillight, 90% realized thanks to additive manufacturing technologies.

Traditional technologies used to realize “artisanal” water supports (following taillights’ profiles in an approximate way); nowadays, thanks to 3D print technologies, we can count on supports which are created and shaped according to necessities, using both plastic and metallic materials (aluminium and iron first). The latter guarantee “a proper and dynamic answer of the structure”, cit. Marco Sala, giving the chance to combine water supports to the vibration ones.

The SELECTIVE LASER MELTING is the main technology used to create the carriers for the vibration tests. It is an additive production technique, which allows us to melt together metallic powders to obtain geometries, which are not feasible with classic CNC work. This is why efficiency of the studied structures is brought to maximum through a strict analysis of final elements.

The real revolution of this new approach to the creation of new carriers and supports for tests lies in the fact that the Addictive Manufacturing Concept covers all the productive cycle, from the design to the test phase. That’s why the customer, who relies on this technology, chooses the assistance of two companies, MPLD and ZARE, who will support him during all the process to obtain the desired prototype. The advantage will be important: firstly, the availability of working and high-quality prototypes and secondly, the assistance of experienced partners.

Would you like to ensure maximum optimisation of your testing process by using the additive technology? Call us to have more information and the chance to schedule a meeting with one of our consultants.