With a surge in demand for new EVs, OEMs are racing to bring new models to the market. This demand has prompted automakers to push towards shorter product life cycles for EVs compared to their Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) counterparts. Along with this, the recent supply chain disruptions fueled a renewed push towards new technologies and reliable partners who can accelerate the product life cycles while reducing the overall manufacturing costs. One such technology that gained strong hold in tool and die industry over the last few years is Laser Heat Treating on automotive dies.

Automotive dies often require all the male radii to be heat treated to reduce the wear and improve die life. Conventional heat treating processes such as induction and flame have high heat input, which distorts the die. To account for this, the die makers leave extra stock material to later comeback and hard mill the die to finish dimensions. This additional hard milling step adds substantial cost to the die manufacturing process. Conventional processes are often performed by hand and lack the feedback control. This results in poor quality and inconsistencies in the heat treated surfaces. Laser heat treating on the other hand, results in minimal distortion. The dies are machined to their final form and laser heat treated as a final step, thereby reducing the process steps such as hardmilling, 2D based machining, etc. This saves substantial time and costs for the die makers, not to mention improved and repeatable quality.

Laser heat treating process involves in a laser beam (with a typical laser spot size from 0.5” x 0.5” to 2” x 2”) to focus onto the metal surface. With proper control, the incident laser energy raises the surface temperature of the metal above its martensitic transformation temperature. The metal’s thermal mass aids in rapid ‘self-quenching’ (by removing the heat via conduction), resulting in the formation of the desired martensite microstructure. This gives the material its required hardness and wear properties.

By utilizing a laser beam, unrivaled precision is achieved by delivering the smallest possible energy to the metal part, resulting in minimal to zero distortion in large automotive dies. The unique characteristics of laser technology offer the following benefits:

• Minimal to zero distortion
• No hard milling required on large automotive dies
• Consistent hardness depth (via. feedback control)

Autodie LLC, when analyzing over 100 applicable draw die castings (Post, Cavity and Binders) concluded that an average of 7 day reduction in Time to Market (TTM) was achieved by switching over to Laser Heat Treating process. By avoiding hard-milling operation, Laser Heat Treating resulted in 37% reduction in machining time. Substantial savings in cutter cost was observed as the castings are now finished by 3D machining while in soft condition. Over a 11 months period Kaizen savings had a benefit to cost average of 28.6 [2]

In summary, Laser Heat Treatment offers substantial cost savings as well as reduction in Time To Market (TTM). This process is likely to expand in the automotive and metal part manufacturing sector. A variety of non-automotive parts such as large gears, bearing etc. are already being laser heat treated. Laser Heat Treatment faces no significant barriers to adoption, aside from the ones that are common to any emerging technology. These include lack of familiarity and a shortage of existing suppliers. The savings, measured by cost, schedule, quality, and energy reduction, are significant and well supported.

About Synergy Additive Manufacturing LLC:

Synergy Additive Manufacturing LLC is ISO 9001:2015 certified company specializing in high power laser-based solutions for complex manufacturing challenges related to wear, corrosion and tool life. Synergy provides laser systems and job shop services for laser heat treating, metal based additive manufacturing, and laser welding.

Synergy Additive Manufacturing currently has two locations. Head office is in Clinton Township, MI and second facility built exclusively to handle large scale laser heat treating is in Grand Rapids, MI. Between the two locations, Synergy is capable of handling parts as large as 30 ft x 10 ft and weighing up to 80,000 pounds. Synergy’s sister company, Synergy Prototype Stamping LLC is capable of handling prototype production runs from 1 pc to 100,000 pieces or higher.”

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