The conference opened with some keynotes, performed for all visitors. Please see the review from the Ceramitec Conference for more on this.
The ‘Shape the Future of Ceramics’ talk focused on the different applications for ceramics, including their uses in industry and medicine, as well as in research.
We were extremely proud to host speakers from multiple different companies and institutions from around the world, such as from Germany, the USA, Sweden and the UK.
Mrs Cathleen Hoel, from GE, concentrated on the practical considerations for additive manufacturing from conception to production in her “Insights from AM experts” lecture. Mr Fruth, from FIT, expanded upon this topic, telling us about his experiences and offering product solutions. Mr Nikolay, of WZR, compared different technologies and shared his expertise of best practice.
The point of view from the industrial side of things was offered by Mrs Bechelany of the Safran Group in France, Mrs Heibel of Cerix (Bosch) and Mr McLelland of Morgan. They all were very open in their presentation about the challenges there are in implementing a completely new technology into production processes, but also explained how they have overcome these difficulties and focused on the new opportunities created by this freedom of geometry.
For the last lecture of the first day, Mr. Schweiger from LMU Munich and Mr Redl from LBI discussed their experience with 3D printing, not only for dental applications, but also for bone replacements. Their findings highlight that there are a wide range of favourable possibilities still to be explored.
The first day ended with a panel discussion moderated by Karin Scharrer, of Göller Verlag, Mr Gaignon, of 3D Ceram, Mr Schnetter, of Schunk, Mr Graf, of Kläger, Dr Homa, of Lithoz and Mrs Heibel, of Cerix, shared their ideas on the industrialization of ceramic 3D printing. Experiences from established technologies were related to and compared with those of the additive manufacturing sector. The conclusion was that the additive manufacturing is now on the edge of serial production, with the first investments by industries in multiple machines and pre-orders of larger quantities of material.
The Ceramitec Conference then hosted a reception with dinner and music, which was greatly enjoyed and which led to lots of eager networking. The second day started with Mr Makaya, from the ESA, who discussed developments in the space agency with regards to additive manufacturing. Mr Scheithauer, of Fraunhofer IKTS, who is a regular speaker at the AM Ceramics, drew attention to the ways in which 3D printing is supporting and advancing challenging projects, while Mr Grande, ofSintef, focused on new potential applications for 3D printed filters in pharmaceutical development.
In the material characterization and testing discussion, Prof Lube, of the Leoben University of Mining, emphasised that testing must always take the future use of the part into account, because – unlike other technologies – the building direction has an important impact on the strength, and therefore optimization, of 3D printed parts. Mr Friedrich, of Fraunhofer HTL, spoke about his experiences with optimizing the thermal treatment of green bodies and compared different technologies in this area.
For the final talk of AM Ceramics 2019, Mr Kalantari, of Lucideon, summarized the experiences of the British ceramic industry with different technologies and shared his outlook upon the future of additive manufacturing while Mr Gradl, of EOS, spoke about the metal 3D printing industry and shared some success stories in the medical market.
The conference was complemented and enriched by a wide exhibition of major players in the ceramic sector, including 3D Ceram, Göller Verlag, Steinbach AG, Linseis, Nanoe and many more.
Mr Hakan Duman, CEO at Magspin Transparent Ceramics, summed up the event with the following words: “The Ceramitec Conference was a great success for us. It is the fastest and most efficient way to network with the right experts. As a Turkish company, we can certainly say that we are now well connected, not only with the European ceramic community, but also with the Indian community. Thank you for your hospitality”.