{"id":167177,"date":"2020-11-18T15:49:04","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T15:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/facfox.com\/news\/?p=167177"},"modified":"2020-11-18T15:49:04","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T15:49:04","slug":"what-you-can-and-cannot-do-with-additive-manufacturing-in-formula-1-additive-manufacturing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/facfox.com\/news\/what-you-can-and-cannot-do-with-additive-manufacturing-in-formula-1-additive-manufacturing\/","title":{"rendered":"What you can and cannot do with additive manufacturing in Formula 1 Additive Manufacturing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Motorsports, and Formula 1 in part<\/a>icular, is considered one of the driving segments for AM adoption. But one thing is the ability to rapidly produce lighter AM car part<\/a>s and an entirely different thing, especially in F1, is the ability to actually use them. That\u2019s because the regulations for additive manufacturing in Formula 1 are very (very) strict and sometimes block AM materials and application<\/a>s.<\/p>\n

These limitations don\u2019t apply to prototyping, of course. You can do a lot of that with AM, even directly on the track. Production requirements are stricter. That\u2019s actually strange because in many cases AM could reduce production costs and make innovative teams with smaller economic possibilities more competitive. In fact, that seems to be what the F1 wanted to achieve by introducing a salary cap in 2021. But the reality of it is a bit more complex.<\/p>\n

What can you 3D print<\/a> in an F1 car?<\/h2>\n

You cannot use AM on the core of primary heat exchangers<\/h3>\n

This seems a bit of a paradox but it actually says so in section 7.4.3 of the 2021 Formula 1 Technical Regulation. This is where the F1 gives indications on \u201cPrimary heat exchanger specification and technology\u201d. In order to reduce the cost of primary heat exchangers used in the car (there are usually the components that hold the fluids), the following restrictions apply: (a). the core and header tanks must be made from aluminum alloy and (b) the core must not<\/span> be produced using additive manufacturing.<\/p>\n

McLaren F1 has been part<\/a>nering with Stratasys for a few years and improvements have been significant. <\/p>\n

So yes, you can use aluminum but no, you cannot 3D print<\/a> it the core of the heat exchanger. This is quite curious. Since the introduction of the hybrid power units, engines need less cooling overall, however, more part<\/a>s need to be cooled. Perhaps the FIA feels at this time that, in this case, having more money means having greater access to AM technologies and thus a greater advantage over other teams. However, this point could probably be reviewed in the future.<\/p>\n

You can use a fairly wide selection of metal materials for AM<\/h3>\n

Section 15.3.2 details the \u201cMetallic Materials Used for Additive Manufacture\u201d, including two recent additions from APWORKS and Elementum. Components produced by additive manufacturing can be made from materials in the following list:<\/p>\n