Authorised Partner
Additive Manufacturing for Truck, Bus & Rail
Bringing innovation to road and rail. Stay Ahead of Regulations with Greater Flexibility and Speed
In order to grow and differentiate from the competition, commercial and public transportation companies are pushing for lower costs, enhanced performance, and flexible product platforms that can quickly adapt to new technologies and customer requirements.
Our extensive portfolio of additive manufacturing technologies, materials, and software can give you the competitive advantage you need to meet these challenges. Through our understanding of the application needs for the railway, truck, and bus industries, we will empower your innovation.
Truck, Bus & Rail Additive Manufacturing Applications
Save Fuel and Reduce Weight with Additive Manufacturing
Consolidate pneumatic functions into a single component to reduce weight and improve overall product efficiency while simultaneously enhancing quality, reducing production inventory, and boosting service.
Our advanced additive manufacturing software applications and 3D printing solutions allow you to reap maximum benefits by producing geometries beyond the competitive scope of traditional manufacturing.
Solve Your Braking Systems and Pneumatic Control Challenges
Apply Smart Packaging and Serviceability
Create robust and innovative designs for constrained spaces, transportation designers and engineers need to balance addressing dimensional challenges with satisfying manufacturing and maintenance requirements.
The precise dimensional control of our additive manufacturing technologies help your engineers overcome the challenging requirements of innovative braking and pneumatic components. Design freedom paired with our wide materials portfolio enables them to optimize packaging geometries and ensure efficient serviceability.
Eliminate Failures, Improve Assembly and Service
Advance quality while reducing product cost, storage needs, and potential supply delays by consolidating components and lowering total part numbers.
The experts in our Application Innovation Group can help you identify opportunities to reduce part count, improve assembly processes, and improve quality and reliability -- even across large ranges of pneumatic configurations.
Iterate and Certify Sub-Systems Faster
Accelerate technology development to drive industry standards, improve safety, and enhance vehicle control systems by iterating and validating faster while taking all driving scenarios and environmental conditions into account.
Use 3D Systems’ additive manufacturing solutions and production-grade materials to achieve and certify optimized and reliable braking control systems ahead of production.
Replace Air Cooling with Safe and Efficient Liquid Cooling Powered by Metal AM
Efficiently manage heat concentration by developing compact power electronics that consolidate parts, improve product value, and increase service intervals compared to traditionally produced, air-cooled systems.
Leverage our additive manufacturing materials and metal manufacturing technologies to solve your thermal management needs with innovative and reliable cooling systems.
Solutions for Metal Structural Component Challenges
Apply Conformal Cooling
The use of liquid for thermal management has been growing in recent years with a preference for compact packaging systems and smart cooling to replace bulky and inefficient air ducts and filters.
Our DMP metal 3D printers and software solutions give engineers high levels of design freedom to produce thin walls and complex geometries that capture and manage energy more efficiently to extend the life and reduce maintenance activities of various systems.
Design Future-Proof Power Electronics
EV’s need to be ready to run with future supercharger stations and meet customers’ request for faster charging time. Additive manufacturing can help OEMs develop power electronics hardware that will be ready to manage higher thermal loads.
With input from our experts in the Application Innovation Group you can design cooling electronics that are flexible and robust enough to manage current and future needs.
Reduce Part Count, Avoid Delays
ncrease manufacturing and service productivity, reduce inventory stock, minimize supply delays, and design reliable products that deliver on time by reducing overall part count on your power electronics.
Producing components in-house with our additive manufacturing solutions and software will help you simplify cooling electronics and keep your assembly line running by reducing manufacturing complexity.
Differentiate Interior Brand Experiences
Grow and differentiate your business in a competitive market by accelerating innovation, simplifying maintenance, and delivering a unique customer experience.
Our additive manufacturing experts can help you find the cutting-edge solutions and advanced materials that make it easier to create durable, unique, customized interiors for commercial and public transportation through direct production. Our knowledge and technology can make your designs a reality.
Solve Your Interior and Passenger Comfort Challenges
Deliver Realistic Interior Concepts Fast
Designers and engineers can quickly innovate and validate new driver-assist technologies by 3D printing functional components with realistic surface finishes and textures.
Our additive manufacturing technology, production-grade materials, and innovative software solutions reduce product development time from days to hours, helping to save costs and improve quality—including feel, appearance, ergonomics, and function.
Save Labor by Optimizing Interiors
Reduce assembly and maintenance labor by integrating latching, hinging, and fastening mechanisms in your interior components using the design freedom of additive manufacturing.
3D Systems’ solutions provide a full spectrum of additive manufacturing machines, materials, and software for your specific application that will simplify your assembly process by reducing manufacturing variability and overall component counts.
Fast Custom Surface Finishes with AM
Designing high-end vehicle-interior experiences requires access to a wide range of high-quality materials and professional software to create realistic surface finishes.
Our additive manufacturing processes are compatible with a broad portfolio of qualified materials, including transparent and flame-retardant options. 3D Sprint software can easily generate customized surface finishes and textures on the entire part or in selected regions of the same part.
Accelerate Casting Production with Reusable 3D Printed Patterns
Reduce production time for casting patterns from months to weeks by leveraging additive manufacturing solutions to develop and optimize reusable patterns for the conventional sand-casting process.
SLA printed copes and drags can be directly used in the conventional sand casting production process for metal parts. With our portfolio of large-format SLA 3D printers and advanced materials, like Accura HPC and Accura PEAK, modelers and designers can create accurate and durable patterns with outstanding surface finish and minimal post-processing.
Solve Your Mold and Pattern Challenges for Sand Casting Metal Parts
Optimize Metal Parts for Casting
Accurately optimize structural parts with 3D printed plastic patterns compatible with conventional sand-casting methods and quickly create fully functional engineering samples and production parts.
Use the Generative Design tool in 3DXpert to accelerate part optimization for the manufacturing process you need while saving material and costs.
Fast Iteration Towards Flask Validation
Use 3D printed patterns to execute rapid casting changes and incorporate product design updates into the flask to ensure accurate and quality castings without defects or material voids.
Our application experts help foundries select the right additive manufacturing tools and technologies to accelerate their casting production needs.
The Right Polymer for Your Pattern
Sand casting patterns need to meet their expected service life, which means the right material choice and cost point is critical as well as compatibility with a wide range of sand types.
Our broad portfolio of composite, rigid, and tough materials offer the right strength, abrasion resistance, and dimensional stability to replace your wood patterns.
Improve Manufacturing and Service Operations While Reducing Tooling and Inventory Costs
Fabrication, assembly and service processes can be complex, prone to quality issues and unpredictable in terms of efficiency and time. Manufacturing aids are often used to reduce applied labor time and improve ergonomics and quality. To better achieve these targets they have become more and more complex and subject to frequent modifications.
Use our 3D printing solutions to flexibly print jigs, aids and tools on-site. Optimize fabrication, assembly, quality and service operations while improving ergonomics and controlling inventory costs — even in the most challenging environments. Tailor your devices to your specific processes and components and quickly iterate for continuous improvement without the expense of traditional tooling and inventory.
Solve Your Manufacturing Aid and Production Tooling Challenges
Accurate and Durable Fixtures, Jigs and Gauges
Efficiency in quality assurance relies on accurate and reliable inspection fixtures, jigs and gauges. Normal use and handling can distort these controls over time. Our advanced materials, 3D printing technologies and design practices help you adopt optimized solutions to implement more effective quality control and repeatable inspection processes to maximize productivity in your manufacturing operations.
Keep Assets Properly Serviced
New products frequently require new maintenance tool kits to ensure proper service and handling for maximum performance during the expected life of the vehicle and its equipment.
With 3D Systems’ additive manufacturing solutions you can design, validate and produce service kits faster and on demand to provide customer support teams with the right tools to meet their mission.
Accelerate Short-Run Production Tools with 3D Printed Patterns and Molds
Conventional tools and dies for thermoforming and hydroforming are expensive and can take a long time to manufacture. 3D Systems’ additive manufacturing solutions can meet your short-run production tooling needs faster and more cost-effectively with a broad variety of large printer sizes and tough FDM, SLA and SLS materials.
Maximize Vehicle Performance and Distinguish Brand with Faster Testing and Validation
A vehicle’s exterior has multiple functions: its styling conveys the vehicle intent and brand value, while the overall form contributes to efficiency and affects energy consumption.
With our considerable transportation expertise and additive manufacturing solutions, we enable you to optimize exterior form and function using rapid iteration, durable materials and precise control. Maximize the appeal and performance of your vehicles with 3D printing.
Solve your Body Exterior and Panel Challenges
Iterate Aerodynamics Faster
Aerodynamic testing is critical to maximizing vehicle efficiency and minimizing drag, but it often requires an incredible investment of time, effort and money. Using our additive manufacturing equipment and materials, you can dramatically accelerate your design validation phase by 3D printing panels directly or by quickly printing cost-effective forming tooling. Faster iterations save you valuable time and resources.
Production-Grade Surface Finish and Quality
Offering a range of surface types can help achieve different design intents and distinguish vehicles on the market. Our direct 3D printing body exterior solution delivers parts with surfaces that support various post-finishing processes, such as sanding, polishing, plating and painting. Validate these parts during testing to further optimize style and performance.
Produce Cost-Effective Large Molds, Fast
Exterior body parts and panels used in trucks, busses and trains are large. Conventional mold tools are expensive and take a long time to develop – majorly impacting ROI for low- to mid- range volumes.
Our expert application engineers can help you design and 3D print molds to meet your body exterior needs - whether for the vacuum form process, fiber glass production or urethane casting – quickly and cost-effectively.
Develop and Validate Electrical Harnesses Faster
Electrical harnesses are a vehicle’s nervous system. With the development of hybrid and EV propulsion systems that need to demonstrate efficient thermal load management before deployment, electrical harnesses are now even more critical.
Thanks to new material developments, 3D Systems enables our customers to produce wiring systems and conduits that meet commercial and public transportation performance requirements over long duty cycles.
Solve Your Energy and Fluid Management Challenges
Optimize Harness Routing with Customized 3D Printed Retention and Protective Parts
Improve your vehicle’s electrical harness routing with better assembly, quality and servicing with customized wiring retention and protective components.
Our advanced additive manufacturing materials, expert applications engineers and multi-technology 3D printing solutions help designers increase routing efficiency, consolidate components and flexibly produce design variations without tooling. Access value that goes beyond the ability of conventional manufacturing.
Return Your Assets to Revenue Service
Freight and transit vehicles have long service lives but can be taken out of service by component issues such as an unavailable microprocessor rail guide or out-of-market electronic board connector.
With Oqton’s reverse engineering software and 3D Systems’ production-grade polymer materials you can print and replace missing components and keep your assets in service. Our application experts can help identify opportunities to support remanufacturing and servicing your vehicles.
Speed Up Your EV Development
Managing electrical power while balancing thermal loads in bus, truck and rail often comes with wiring, connection and conduit challenges.
Validate and certify optimized and reliable commercial and public transportation electrical systems ahead of production with 3D Systems’ end-to-end additive manufacturing solutions. Eliminate the cost of tooling and directly manufacture your harnesses and conduits in production-grade materials.
Next-Day Seals and Gaskets
Optimizing and validating seals, gaskets, grommets and other rubber-like components in transportation is critical to ensuring perfect fit and function. However, these parts can be time-consuming and expensive to produce with conventional methods.
Our 3D printing solutions allow you to rapidly design, iterate, prototype and produce these complex components. Use eggshell molding processes for 100% silicone components or directly 3D print parts up to 1.5m long in chemically-resistant elastomers that can meet all your truck, bus and rail requirements.
Solve Your Powertrain and Engine Area Challenges
Industrial-Grade Performance
Dimensional precision, chemical compatibility, and mechanical and physical properties are
critical factors for product validation and final-use components. Achieve production performance with digital eggshell molding or direct 3D printing using rubber-like and elastomer materials that offer pristine surface quality, texturing capability, detail fidelity and exceptional accuracy. Compare your material requirements with our broad portfolio of materials and thorough test data, including a 3D printing elastomer with up to 97 Shore A.
Reduce Tool Investment Risk, Directly Print Large Seal Prototypes and Production Parts
Innovation in developing and validating large-scale seals and gaskets has long been limited by expensive tooling and long lead times.
With our large-format extrusion 3D printers and broad range of flexible industrial polymers, you can now iterate and optimize rubber and elastomer parts by directly printing them before finalizing your designs for production tooling.
Best-In-Class Materials with Long-Term Environmental Stability
Our elastomeric materials for 3D printing are engineered to give long-term environmental UV and humidity stability and offer excellent tear-resistance and elongation properties. Use our documentation of chemical resistance testing to determine suitability for your specific application.
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Achieve Sustainability Goals with 3D Systems
Leverage Innovative Solutions to Reach Net Zero Emissions
Accelerate new technologies to improve commercial vehicle efficiency and meet your environmental sustainability objectives with innovative drive train systems. Help your customers modernize and optimize existing fleets. Reduce development and implementation cycle time with help from our additive manufacturing and transportation industry experts.
Gain Supply Chain Control with Production Ready Technology
3D Systems can support your vertical integration strategies with our wide variety of additive manufacturing technologies, production-grade materials, manufacturing operating system software, and expertise in commercial and public transportation applications. Keep your assembly lines running with bridge production solutions and optimized tooling, and support your customers with on-demand spare, or hard-to-find parts.
Achieve Sustainable Business Growth
Stay ahead of the competition with agile responses to changing regulations and grow your business by quickly addressing customer needs with help from our additive manufacturing solutions and leading expertise. We can help you find competitive solutions for product customization to increase your presence in niche markets and implement flexible and scalable manufacturing processes to accelerate product delivery.