An update on GE Additive's metal binder jetting technology

'We want to make sure that whatever we bring actually does what we say it can do.'

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Per conversations at RAPID + TCT this month, GE Additive is conscious that it appears secretive when it comes to the metal binder jet technology it announced was under development at the end of 2017.

But the mystique has been pierced at sporadic intervals when a new member is added to its designated Beta Partner Program. Power generation firm Cummins was announced in April 2019, with transportation company Wabtec following a month later. Then, Sandvik joined the group during the pandemic, and 12 months ago Cummins revealed its first metal binder jet 3D printed part was in the final stages of production.

Otherwise, updates have been in short supply. There was a time when GE Additive anticipated the launch would come in 2021, but like HP – who is also working to develop a metal binder jet technology that hasn't quite stuck to its original timeline – there appears to have been a delay.

But development work has continued. And at RAPID + TCT, the latest period of radio silence was interrupted. Tooling and industrial materials supplier Kennametal was named as the latest beta partner, and an image of its third-generation machine was published, but there is still no launch date – at least not for public eyes and ears.

“We really want to make sure that whatever we bring to the market works,” Brian Birkmeyer, Product Line Leader for Binder Jet at GE Additive, told TCT. “It has to be capable. We don’t want to push something too fast. We’ve been working on it for a number of years now and we’ve intentionally not been rushed or too public because we want to make sure that whatever we bring actually does what we say it can do. That’s the key tenant that we’re operating on.”

Though GE Additive has admittedly been coy throughout those years, the previous incumbent of Birkmeyer’s position – Jake Brunsberg – told TCT in August 2019 that the metal binder jet technology was being designed as a long-term production solution that enabled high volumes of parts to be produced at low cost. He added that the technology would “unlock the ability to do those additive innovative designs, but at a price point and throughput that is tangible for automotive industries applications.”

With such promise out in the open, GE Additive has vowed not to roll out the technology beyond its beta partners until it can live up to it.

“We’re well down the path on the series three development [of our binder jet technology],” Birkmeyer added. “We continue to push it through validation – the H2 betas have proven to be a quite capable platform – and we continue to take on new beta partners to work with us as we develop what our truly scaled commercial offering is going to be as we go forward. Bringing Kennametal into the fold helps us expand into a new material for us and bring on another industrial partner that has a similar mindset with customer centricity, industrial scaled additive in mind.”

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GE Additive believes the most effective method of technology development for the binder jet platform is to have ‘hands-on input’ from its Beta Partner Programme members – hands-on meaning close collaboration as the partners develop real-world business cases for parts that can scale with GE’s technology.

Kennametal’s focus is on industrial wear applications within oil and gas, mining and construction, and general industry and processes. The company has more than a decade’s worth of experience in additive manufacturing, set up its AM business unit in 2019 and played a role in ensuring binder jetting was included in the API standards for the oil and gas industry last year. Its interest in binder jet is aligned with its steep expertise in tungsten carbide and Stellite – a cobalt chrome alloy – which are characterised by their wear, heat and corrosion performance.

Currently, GE Additive’s binder jetting technology is primarily being paired with stainless steels and copper alloys, with the future roadmap being heavily influenced by the needs and wants of its beta partners. With Kennametal on board, that is likely to mean an effort to qualify tungsten carbide and Stellite materials for the technology.

“I won’t say which ones we’re looking at because that’s based on the solution sets we need,” said Jay Verellen, General Manager, Kennametal Additive Manufacturing. “But for us, it’s tungsten carbide and Stellite materials, which is like a Stellite Six, and those are the core materials. My favourite ‘F word’ is focus, so we try not to be all things to all people. We want to lead in this area. We are heavily focused; we do have line of sight and ideas of how we’re working in different wear solutions.”

Application identification and development for GE’s technology are ongoing at Kennametal, with scope for each of the industries its active in to be potential beneficiaries of the metal binder jetting process.

“The early uptake was strong in oil and gas and processing, and the reason for that is there is a need to be more sustainable and more effective,” Verellen said. “There are solutions that we’ve been able to develop with customers that are scaling or to assist them in those, so we have a pretty good idea. Then the general industry is where we have EV battery production. They have blades and knives that are cutting the materials, so we are able to now customise for their applications.

“Our teams have been engaged with the customers already. We print what they have to prove the technology, so they know it works, and we’re now past that and to the how do we change designs together [stage]. We have a pretty good idea that there are some complexities that we’ve found and how do we get past that.”

The company has also been fielding requests and enquiries from industries that it doesn’t have existing connections to, such is the interest in the capabilities of the technology. But much like GE Additive’s approach to rolling out the technology, Kennametal is cautious and clinical when it comes to manufacturing parts and putting them out into the field.

“We need fully dense, qualified parts every time,” Verellen explained. “We have to get all that in place before we take it to the next level. It’s one thing to manage it as you’re doing 10 of this, 50 of that, 100 of these, now we’re into the scale where we’re ramping up and it’s thousands of this, so we need to be able to scale that in a much bigger way. We want to make sure it’s qualified parts. We have trust, a quality brand name, we solve problems, customers trust us, and we won’t compromise.”

This feeds back to GE Additive in exactly the way the company wants. The Beta Partner Programme has four publicly named members, who have all been selected because of their manufacturing expertise, yes, but also because of their strict requirements. It is with the likes of Cummins, Wabtec, Sandvik and Kennametal holding GE Additive to account that it will eventually bring to market what it believes to be a robust and capable metal binder jetting technology.

“The Beta Partner Programme has been really informative on our end because as we partner with end-users of the technology, we go hand in hand through the industrialisation thereof, we get a lot of learnings back in terms of what are our machines and processes going to be capable of,” Birkmeyer said. “When we have folks that are public, like Cummins as an example, they’ve got very rigorous requirements and expectations and we’ve been able to glean that very closely with them as we build it into our future technologies, and it helps us help those folks stand up scale production when that time comes. So, when their applications are ready, when their production requires it, they’re ready to hit go because they have faith in the technology.”

Thus the conversations between GE Additive and its partners continue. There is still no launch date for its metal binder jetting technology, and there is still plenty that the company is keeping close to its chest, but work is ongoing.

“We’re always evolving and getting better,” Birkmeyer finished. “I’d say the technology is quite capable where it is today, but we still have high aspirations to make it even better. There is a host of different variables in binder jet, so there's always room for improvement, and I think the industry is always going to push us that way.”