The School of Engineering at the ZHAW, one of Switzerland's leading technical education and research institutions, , provides an AM research-to-industry platform which enables faster and efficient access to information, making the benefits of AM processes more accessible.

The AM platform offers comprehensive infrastructure, years of experience in the field of additive manufacturing methods in various forms and an interdisciplinary approach. It unifies our competencies in the areas of material development, product and production development, printer and control technology, and in advanced modeling methods, and enables our partners to implement their innovative project ideas and development projects.

• Product development and production technologies with optimization of the entire production chain from the idea, via Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM), production technologies and resources to the operational product
• Processes: Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB, SLM) using metals, ceramics and plastics, material extrusion (MEX, FDM) and Vat Photopolymerization (VPP, SLA)
• Development of systems and components for the efficient production of prototypes and end-user products
• Training and continuing education in the field of Additive Manufacturing, from Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) to the appropriate manufacturing processes and post-processing

Contact

• Dr. Stefan Czerner (stefan.czerner@zhaw.ch) and Hanspeter Sautter (hanspeter.sautter@zhaw.ch)
• www.zhaw.ch/ipp

• Material development and qualification, tailored to individual material and process requirements
• Additive manufacturing concepts for technical ceramics, metals, polymers, and fiber composites
• Process development for new materials, e.g. high-performance alloys, glasses, sustainable polymers
• Transfer between additive technologies and series production in the injection molding process
• Material and component testing

Contact

• Prof. Dr. Dirk Penner (dirk.penner@zhaw.ch) and Dr. Rene Radis (rene.radis@zhaw.ch)
• www.zhaw.ch/impe

• Development of multi-axis device and process technology to achieve the greatest possible design freedom in material extrusion (MEX/FDM)
• Development of new slicing strategies for material extrusion (MEX/FDM) to reduce support material
• Non-planar printing and non-planar slicing for MEX/FDM enables improvement in surface quality

Contact

• Michael Wüthrich (michael.wuethrich@zhaw.ch)
• www.zhaw.ch/ims

Institut für Mechanische Systeme (IMES)

• Thermo-mechanical process simulation methods (TMPS) for PBF-LB/M (hot spots, distortions, residual stresses, distortion compensation) to improve the shape accuracy and reliability of the additive manufacturing process
• Development of calibration methods for TMPS for more accurate predictions.
• Simulation-based optimization for a physically meaningful and robust adaptation of the support structures
• Development of bionic lightweight components using topology optimization to exploit the full lightweight potential and the possibility of complex shapes through additive manufacturing
• Thermo-physical and -mechanical material characterization and modelling (heat conduction, dilatometry) as a basis for simulations
• Development of design and assessment methods for additively manufactured components to take appropriate account of potential manufacturing failures in the design

Contact

• Prof. Dr. Thomas Mayer (thomas.mayer@zhaw.ch)
• www.zhaw.ch/imes

Centre for Artificial Intelligence

• Targeted selection of process parameters under quality constraints via safe probabilistic model-based approaches
• Closed-loop control of AM processes using available sensor data
• Learning-based models for performance improvement

Contact

• Dr. Alisa Rupenyan (alisa.rupenyan@zhaw.ch)
• www.zhaw.ch/cai

AM Expo | September 12 to 13, 2023, trade fair and symposium, Lucerne Exhibition Center

The ZHAW has been organizing symposia and conferences on 3D printing and additive manufacturing since 2014.