David Gerke, section supervisor, Engine Manufacturing Development Operations, Ford Motor Co., and his colleagues at the Beech Daly Technical Center (BDTC; Dearborn Heights, MI) are helping the entire company accelerate its product development. They’re doing so with an array of additive prototyping technologies. “We’ve got five SLA machines, 2 FDM machines, selective laser sintering machines from every manufacturers, and we’re the only Ford facility in North America with sand printing equipment.” Indeed, the BDTC is a veritable machine shop where the machinery is essentially all related to creating prototypes for a vast array of products. While the operations are organizationally under Ford’s powertrain, and while they do considerable work developing engines at BDTC, they also handle everything from chassis parts to interior components there.

One of the things they’ve found in, for example, developing a new engine is that a physical 3D model is more helpful than a 3D digital model. It’s really quite simple. Although a 3D digital model provides a substantial amount of information about the object, sometimes the digital world and the physical world aren’t sufficiently aligned. Gerke says that what they now do is create a nylon model with the selective laser sintering (SLA) equipment of an entire engine assembly—block, head, covers, manifolds, bolt-on components. Because they have the physical model, engineers can do things like route fuel lines and wire harnesses on the engine and see whether there is a kink or a corner that was missed in the digital modeling, something that could cause a significant problem when it comes to manufacturing.

Ford’s new EcoBoost engine, which has higher pressures than conventional internal combustion engines, was extensively modeled at BDTC during its development.

Whereas rapid prototyping may be perceived by some as something to do under special circumstances, that’s not the case at Ford. In fact, Gerke says that they’re doing more and more parts as people within various parts of the development organization become aware of what they can do. “Almost everything we do,” he explains, “is a functional part. They’re not just for pretty presentations.” He admits that once it was about creating models that were pretty much, well, models. “It used to be you’d get an order for 15 half-size cylinder heads. And you know we don’t manufacture half-sized cylinder heads in our plants. People wanted them for their desks. But we’re to the point now where everything is functional.”

And far more than being a place where they are making models for design verification, they’re using the equipment to create parts so that when the drawings are released for tooling, there is a high level of confidence that the tools will be right the first time. For example, talking about the ProMetal RCT printers (www.prometal-rct.com) that create casting cores and molds via a printing process (essentially there is molding sand onto which a foundry-grade adhesive resin is printed in a stepped manner to create the object required), Gerke says, “We’re driving more and more to ‘make like production.’ We’re putting the parting lines in. The drafts in. Whatever you’ll see in a production casting, you’ll see in what we do.” The goal here is to determine what will happen in production, during actual casting, not just to make a prototype for purposes that could include functional testing.

In one regard, the “make like production” is literal. They’re producing intake manifolds with the SLS equipment that is not only being used for functional testing in dynamometer durability cells (one ran for 800 hours with no problems, no cracks), but they’re producing manifolds for Ford Racing that are offered for sale to customers. “Every year they can make some modifications and offer upgrades—and this saves them from having to make any tooling.”

One advantage of having an array of equipment is that they’re able to use each type in concert. Gerke uses the example of developing a cast cylinder head that will be machined. They make an SLA model. Because of the accuracy of the model, it is used for coordinate measuring machine (CMM) programming for inspection. A nylon model is used to develop tool paths. And the sand sintering machine is used to make the mold for casting. What’s significant here is that not only are they able to go from finalized drawing to the first casting in four weeks, rather than the 10 to 12 weeks that is required for conventional prototyping (i.e., cutting metal molds), but by simultaneously working on the inspection and machining programming, they’re able to take even more time out of the process.

As mentioned, they go well beyond engine work at BDTC. For example, they’re making instrument panels and center consoles for purposes of determining whether they meet packaging requirements. “We can print a nylon IP piece in about five days,” Gerke says, adding with a smile, “I don’t know if they can order the aluminum for making a prototype tool that fast.”

They’re making molds for seat foams. The development of seats requires that people actually sit in them in order to determine whether they meet requirements for comfort and support. So it is necessary to make tools to shoot the foam cushions that are assembled into a seat. Gerke says it takes about two weeks to make a sand mold for a foam tool. They’re able to make about 30 to 40 pieces from it. The fastest conventional way is to make an epoxy tool: about six weeks. If the foam isn’t right, they print another sand mold. “This takes a lot of waste and labor out of the process,” he notes. “Sand is inexpensive. Epoxy tools are kind of expensive, and they’re a hazardous waste at the end of the day—you don’t just throw them in a dumpster.”

They make wheels in a quarter of the time that it takes to machine them. And because they’re doing them so fast, they’re able to make more for functional testing, not the one or two sets that has been the norm. They are even making some trim steel stamping dies in three or four days, compared with the conventional three or four weeks. They are making oil filter adapters out of nylon so that people in the plant can see whether there are sufficient clearances for bolt-up on the assembly line; they are making clear front chain drives for engines out of SLA material so that engineers can see oil flow patterns. They’re doing A-arms, power steering gears, steering knuckles. Converter housings and end caps for starters. And more.

“For making almost every part on a vehicle, this equipment is capable,” Gerke says.