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Additive manufacturer prints a roll bar for a solar vehicle racing in Australia

additive manufacturing

Uniformity Labs 3D-printed this racecar roll bar from AlSi10Mg. Uniformity

Uniformity Labs has 3D-printed the roll bar for a solar-powered racecar scheduled to participate in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, a 3,000-km-long race through the Australian Outback.

The Fremont, Calif., additive manufacturer built the roll bar from an ultralow-porosity aluminum alloy (AlSi10Mg) on its in-house SLM Solutions 280 2.0 dual-laser, PBF (powder bed fusion) printer. The layers are 30 µm thick.

The racecar՚s engineering team used topological optimization techniques to design the roll bar, and, according to Uniformity, specified 3D-printing the part from aluminum powder to ensure strength while reducing weight.

“Our AlSi10Mg and print processes allowed the car development team to create a better part quickly, cheaply, and optimized for the necessary weight and safety parameters,” said Uniformity Labs՚ founder and CEO, Adam Hopkins.

Bridgestone՚s biennial race through Australia’s Outback originally was slated to run this October, but, due to the pandemic, has been pushed back to October 2023.

solar power

Scene from a past Bridgestone solar-powered race through the Australian Outback. Bridgestone