Metal 3D Printer for Mass Production of Aluminum Parts

In high-tech industries such as those manufacturing electric vehicles (EVs) and facilities such as data centers, advances in semiconductor performance have led to increased heat generation. Efficient dissipation and management of this heat is essential for maintaining system stability and performance.

However, manufacturing methods that limit the degree of flexibility in the shape of conventional heat exchange components restricted the efficacy of these components, preventing the further improvement of cooling performance.

To tackle this issue, Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology is attracting attention as an innovative manufacturing technology that enhances design freedom. However, the powder bed fusion (PBF) method, which melts metal with lasers, is not suitable for mass production in terms of productivity and cost.

In light of this situation, binder jetting technology (BJT), which enables simultaneous printing of multiple parts with high productivity, is seen as an AM technology that can be used for mass production.

BJT is an AM method that uses an inkjet printhead to selectively jet a liquid adhesive agent, called a binder, onto layers of metal powder. The binder causes the powder particles to bond together, forming the desired shape.

By repeating this process, a three-dimensional shape is formed. After printing, the powder is removed from the areas where binder is not applied, and by heating it in a sintering furnace, a part with a dense metallic structure is formed.

Ricoh is developing materials and printing processes for manufacturing aluminum parts using the BJT process and we are working to establish the technology for mass production.

By applying a design method that assumes mass production with BJT, it will be possible to design intricate heatsink fins and cooling channels that are difficult to design with conventional manufacturing methods. This will improve cooling performance beyond the limitations of conventional manufacturing technologies.

We aim to provide new cooling solutions to maximize the performance of EV inverters and semiconductors for data center CPUs/GPUs.

High-performance heat exchange components may require complex flow channels, but completely removing the powder remaining in the channels after printing can be difficult. Ricoh has developed a powder removal technology using solvent that can reliably remove powder even from very narrow channels.

Heat exchange components may be required to be over 300 mm in size, depending on the application, but there are restrictions on the size when making them by a sintering process. Ricoh has developed a technology to form the intricate flow channel part using the BJT process and join it with an outer case manufactured by conventional methods. This makes it possible to manufacture large parts at low cost.

Ricoh has designed intricate cooling flow channels based on the BJT process for parts manufacturing and we have realized an aluminum heat sink with cooling performance comparable to that of conventional copper heat sinks.

Aluminum is lighter and more cost-effective than copper. The potential for high-performance heat exchangers that take advantage of these benefits will increase if we can replace copper heat sinks with aluminum heat sinks.