The role of 3D print­ing in the field of race car man­u­fac­tur­ing and tun­ing

3D print­ing is a tool-free man­u­fac­tur­ing process that is the per­fect com­pan­ion for motor­sports. Instead of spend­ing thou­sands of dol­lars on new molds or deal­ing with a back­log of prod­ucts that are now obso­lete, 3D print­ing can help you mod­i­fy your prod­ucts quick­ly and flex­i­bly to get to mar­ket faster.

It also increas­es design free­dom and pro­vides the abil­i­ty to cus­tomize prod­ucts to sat­is­fy your imag­i­na­tion. Build com­plex shapes such as lat­tices with­out increas­ing costs, help­ing you achieve low-vol­ume pro­duc­tion and cus­tom parts quick­ly and cost-effec­tive­ly.

1. It pro­vides a solu­tion for the light­weight of rac­ing cars.

In a sport where speed, weight loss and devel­op­ment cycle are crit­i­cal, teams strive to lose every gram. 3D print­ing can be done by topol­o­gy opti­miza­tion and the selec­tion of light­weight mate­ri­als.

Fer­rari used met­al 3D print­ing to man­u­fac­ture the engine pis­tons, and in order to be able to bet­ter resist defor­ma­tion and not break in extreme tem­per­a­tures, the com­pa­ny want­ed to aban­don the alu­minum alloy and use a steel alloy for man­u­fac­tur­ing, which could lead to an increase in weight, but after topol­o­gy opti­miza­tion, the part was designed with a grid design to reduce weight and main­tain the strength of the part.

2. Use 3D print­ing to quick­ly design iter­a­tion

Sauber Alfa Romeo uses 3D print­ing to man­u­fac­ture and test its brake inlet designs, which allows them to iter­ate on mul­ti­ple inlet ideas faster than tra­di­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­ing and helps them explore more high-per­for­mance mate­ri­als. While enjoy­ing the flex­i­bil­i­ty and speed offered by 3D print­ing, they also dis­cov­ered designs that ensure the best per­for­mance of the car.

Hart­ley Engines has been design­ing, devel­op­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing rac­ing engines. They used 3D print­ing to cre­ate the engine’s intake man­i­fold and sens­ing parts, and instead of sim­ply machin­ing a round hole in a plate, they made extreme­ly com­plex curves and shapes that matched the CAD mod­el of the cylin­der head.

Thanks to 3D print­ing, Hart­ley Engines can quick­ly cus­tomize cus­tom engine designs and com­po­nents for cus­tomers, great­ly improv­ing design and pro­duc­tion effi­cien­cy.

3. 3D print­ing molds and test pieces

Williams Rac­ing, one of the famous F1 teams, has been using 3D print­ing to cre­ate the front wings and oth­er com­po­nents for test­ing dur­ing wind tun­nel test­ing.

McLaren’s dis­play of the rear wing flap, the layup tool used to mould car­bon fibre rein­forced com­pos­ites, is 3D print­ed, allow­ing McLaren to quick­ly change track-spe­cif­ic down­force require­ments to ensure his car per­forms at its best.

Pro­to­soon has var­i­ous types of indus­tri­al-grade 3D print­ing equip­ment, which can sup­port the print­ing of a vari­ety of mate­ri­als (nylon, met­al, car­bon braz­ing, etc.) and tech­nol­o­gy (SLA, SLS, SLM, MJF, etc.) at rea­son­able prices and reli­able qual­i­ty. Con­tact us today to get start­ed on your next project.