Lincoln Electric
On the shore of one of the five Great Lakes sits a headquarters spanning over 2 million square feet, home to the largest welding company in the world, Lincoln Electric.
Inside, word is getting around about the 18-strong Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) robotic systems based in a facility down the road. This technology has already shaved weeks and months of time off customer deliveries, and now Lincoln Electric wants to take advantage too. Soon after, a large hydraulic cylinder, the forging for which would take six months to get, was additively manufactured within six weeks out of a high-strength steel. It is one of many quick-turn replacement parts 3D printed by Lincoln Electric for Lincoln Electric.
“That’s significant when you have a production line that needs a part and is not running at full efficiency,” says Mark Douglass, Business Development Manager, Additive Solutions, Lincoln Electric. “That speed matters so the factory can get back up to full efficiency.”
In 2019, Lincoln Electric, stationed in Cleveland, Ohio just a stone’s throw away from Lake Erie, launched the Additive Solutions manufacturing service, to supplement its longstanding legacy of producing and supplying a variety of welding consumables, equipment, and automation systems. It was established to deliver large components to industries like energy, heavy equipment, shipbuilding and more — though producing parts for internal use is a nice side benefit.
Several decades ago, the company made a concerted effort to build out more automation capability, recognizing it as an important feature of manufacturing moving forward. In similar vein, when the time was right, the company swiftly set about building an additive manufacturing service business, powered by WAAM technology. WAAM was deemed the obvious choice given Lincoln Electric’s extensive expertise in welding and its pre-existing supply chain of wire, robotic automation, software and controls.
“What we also anticipated in the market, and this has proven to be true, is the long lead times you have with castings and forgings – we’re able to shorten that dramatically,” Douglass continues. “We knew there was significant value, not necessarily to all customers but a lot of customers, of being able to shorten that lead time significantly, 50%, 80%, even 90%.”
This is true of many customers in the aforementioned industries Lincoln Electric Additive Solutions has targeted, where speed and time to market are critical.
The company recently worked with Chevron, a multinational energy corporation, and Stress Engineering Services to qualify and additive manufacture eight pressure components that were installed in a hydrogen furnace of a refinery. Printed in nickel wire with the WAAM process, the components weighed over 500 lbs each. In the printing of the components, CAD model changes were able to be made, some after the printing had commenced, to ease installation and improve part performance. Importantly, Lincoln Electric was able to manufacture, qualify and test the components in four weeks, saving up to eight weeks compared to conventional methods. Lincoln Electric, Chevron and Stress Engineering Services would later win the TCT Industrial Application Award at this year’s TCT Awards.
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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.
On the back of success stories like this, Lincoln Electric Additive Solutions has room to expand the number of WAAM systems installed at its Cleveland facility.
The company sees big potential in additive manufacturing and has made good progress in components ‘that are measured in feet and metres, rather than inches and centimetres.’ That said, there may be a need for a larger WAAM system to cater for the demands it is getting, and Douglass also suggests alloys optimised for WAAM would move things further along.
And then there are the commercial hurdles. Additive manufacturing’s reputation may extend across the road within Lincoln Electric, and it may have reached the likes of Chevron, but it’s still considered a nascent technology, especially in the heavy industries.
“Getting people to know that it exists, getting the word out there, that’s a huge hurdle,” Douglass finishes. “This is very much farming, and we’re in the ploughing and planting seed stage. There’s not a whole lot of harvest, but I think it’s coming. We’re already seeing it now.”
