World's first 3-D printed titanium brake caliper
400W lasers, over 2000 powder applications, and more than 60 hours per part; Bugatti's inkjet is better than yours
Forged from blocks of high-strength aluminium alloy, the Chiron already makes use of the world's largest and most powerful calipers. Titanium would, of course, be preferable, but utilising the metal has to date been impractical, due to the difficulty of milling or forging components from the aircraft grade material.
But working with the German Laser Zentrum Nord, Bugatti's engineers have apparently found a 21st century solution to the problem. They've designed what is both the first 3-D printed brake caliper and the world's largest functional 3-D printed titanium component, and in doing so have increased strength whilst decreasing weight by 40 per cent.
Heat treatment followed, eliminating residual stress and ensuring dimensional stability by exposing the caliper temperatures of up to 700°C. The surface was then smoothed in a combined mechanical, physical and chemical process which "drastically improves fatigue strength" before all functional surfaces, such as the piston contact surfaces or threads, were further perfected over an additional 11 hours.
Understandably, then, Bugatti's Head of New Technologies Frank Götzke says, "It was a very moving moment for the team when we held our first titanium brake caliper from the 3-D printer in our hands."
Vehicle trials for use of the 3-D printed caliper in series production are set to start soon, with the engineers insisting that production times, especially for machining, will be drastically reduced as the product moves forward. If all goes to plan the results can reasonably be expected to filter down to other VW products in the coming years, meaning it may not be too long before 3-D printed components make a lack of available parts a thing of the past.
But it would certainly involve Ti.
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/june-2015-dig...
But working with the German Laser Zentrum Nord, Bugatti's engineers have apparently found a 21st century solution to the problem. They've designed what is both the first 3-D printed brake caliper and the world's largest functional 3-D printed titanium component...
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/june-2015-dig...
VAG alone last year made just over 10.3 MILLION cars, each with four brake calipers. So that's a brake caliper off the production line every 0.786 seconds. A 3d printed caliper that takes a multi-million Euro machine several days to make is pointless.
I had a similar conversation recently with a company who is 3d printing heat exchangers (radiators). They said "our heat exchangers are 40% more efficient than the best conventional heat exchanger supplied by any Tier1 supplier today" To which i said "terrific, can i have 1 million of them by the end of the month?" and they said "er, no, they take 8 hours to print". They seemed to be unable to grasp the simple fact that this problem made there "solution" however technically amazing it might be, completely irrelevant......
te from PH 
1. Not every one of those 10m cars uses this grade of caliper. Each caliper probably costs more than an entry-level VW Up!
2. They use more than one machine to make calipers.
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