Land Rover BAR/ Twitter
Land Rover BAR sailing boat
Land Rover BAR has the ultimate goal of building a boat capable of winning the Luis Vuitton America’s Cup.
Land Rover BAR have enhanced their performance by incorporating additive manufacturing techniques into their daily production processes.
With the help of the team’s Technical Innovation Group (TIG) and its partner Renishaw, Land Rover BAR have adopted additive manufacturing at three different levels within the team. The simplest level in which 3D printing is used is as a prototyping and visualisation tool. Since Land Rover BAR manufacture a large number of custom parts, 3D printing allows the group to make full size prototypes which can be tested before they produce the final design.
“The prototyping process is really useful when we are trying to develop something,” said Land Rover BAR’s Chief Technology Officer, Andy Claughton. “It allows us to get our hands on it, put it in place on the boat or link it up with other parts of the system and see potential issues and refine the design before we commit to the production of the final piece.”
The team has its own, fully equipped, traditional machine shop, as well as an extensive composites team. Between their skills and the facilities at their disposal, they can make almost anything Land Rover BAR will need. But if the final part can be 3D-printed then that option is the one that will be used. Perhaps the biggest advantage to this system is a significant reduce in cost.
Land Rover BAR/ Twitter
Land Rover BAR
Land Rover BAR have enhanced their performance by incorporating additive manufacturing techniques into their daily production processes.
An example of how useful 3D printing can be is for the end cap for the boat’s bowsprit, a complex shape designed to reduce the aerodynamic drag. Land Rover BAR 3D-printed the bowsprit in plastic because there was no load involved, and a single item was required. Previously, this would have been built in carbon fibre to the finish and standard of a piece of custom furniture, but at a great expense thanks to the time and skill of those involved. Now, once the design has been fully developed, it can be produced in a matter of hours at a lower cost.
The components are manufactured from paper thin layers of fine metallic powder, typically 0.05mm thick. Working in an argon inert atmosphere, heat is applied using a laser beam, directed using software-controlled mirrors, and focused to accurately weld the areas required to create the part.
“The potential of additive manufacturing in terms of saving weight and improving efficiency is tremendous,” added Andy Claughton. “For example, we took a long hard look at our hydraulics system. Before 3D printing came along all the parts in this system would have been manufactured by taking metal away from a solid back. The shapes that you can create with this method are limited, so the design is limited and so too is the efficiency.
“In addition to the improvements in efficiency, we can now build it much more lightly as we are only adding material specifically where it is needed. In the past, the geometry of manufacture on a lathe or other cutting tool meant that some material couldn’t be removed and we would have to carry around the excess weight. No longer.”
Land Rover BAR is a Sir Ben Ainslie project which, upon its 2014 foundation, was awarded a £6.5 million of Government funding to support the team. The project, a commercial sports team focused on sailing, has the ultimate goal of building a boat capable of winning the Luis Vuitton America’s Cup.
