The factory at Materials Solutions has a footprint of 4,500 m2 and houses multiple machines across its shop floor. Many of Siemens’ latest digital factory and AM technologies are employed, including an end-to-end PLM chain, Siemens’ NX CAD software, and MindSphere, the Siemens cloud-based, open IoT operating system that connects products, factories, systems and machines with data analytics.
By leveraging Siemens’ design experience and expertise, Materials Solutions is offering various design services for AM. Siemens provides engineering services and consulting to help create a digital twin of the 3D-printed component. The company’s experience is the prerequisite for automating and thereby industrialising 3D printing, including post-processing, until qualification and certification – all under one roof.
Siemens’ metal AM technology has been validated through its in-house application within the company’s Power and Gas, and Power Generation Services businesses. The company has been additively manufacturing hot rotating parts for use in its gas turbines, and the company has now gathered more than 110,000 hours of engine experience with 3D-printed gas turbine parts in fully operational power plants.
Materials Solutions is also supporting Siemens’ latest HL-class gas turbines with AM components in serial production to drive emissions reduction and increased performance in gas turbines. Siemens will use AM technology to manufacture combustion components for the SGT5-9000HL gas turbine, and they will be used for the first time by the Scottish energy company SSE at the combined cycle power plant, Keadby 2, in Lincolnshire.
In 2016, Siemens acquired a majority stake (85%) in Materials Solutions, which was established 10 years earlier in 2006.
