3D printing for rail industry
More than
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> 7,000 parts printed and sold
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> 800 different parts in our virtual warehouse
Optimized spare parts thanks to additive manufacturing
Additive manufacturing enables Siemens Mobility Services to keep original parts available for rail traffic over decades and improve their designs - all based on 3D data and without a need for tools. What we’re offering is called Easy Sparovation Part®. It opens whole new possibilities for replacing and modernizing system parts and upgrading your vehicles with new components. For example, it provides you with spare parts equipped with newly integrated functions and significantly fewer individual components. In a joint exchange, "Customer-Cocreation" we improve your spare parts on the basis of your own experience. And the know-how gained from this process is injected into new vehicle development efforts.Here, at a glance, is our range of additive manufacturing services
- Training and consulting from our experts for your projects
- Surveying, scanning and digitalizing your spare parts
- Engineering and re-engineering
- Printing on demand and series manufacturing
- Testing, approval and certification in compliance with all standards, laws and regulations governing the rail industry
Easy Sparovation Part – faster, better, more efficient
Provide optimized spare parts with higher benefits and lower costs on site in less time.
With Easy Sparovation Part from Siemens Mobility Services, your spare parts are manufactured as required – based on prepared CAD component data. One of the many advantages is the rapid availability of spare parts produced by additive manufacturing – ideal e.g. for sporadic demand that can’t be scheduled, such as parts needed due to accidents or vandalism. Even complex part geometries can be fabricated quickly, reliably, and flexibly - even with the smallest quantities. Attractive as well is the continuous potential for re-engineering: Whether to meet new statutory requirements, improve working conditions, or fulfill passengers’ changing design demands, additive manufacturing enables you to incorporate new insights gained from practical applications and materials technology, implement ergonomic improvements, and integrate additional functions – turning your spare parts into “improved parts”.
Datasets are available at any time when future modifications are desired, as complete, end-to-end digital documentation is created as a by-product of the process. And that, in turn, ensures you fast, streamlined fabrication processes in future as well – even for rarely needed parts.
Q&As around 3D printing for the rail industry
Fabricating finished parts layer by layer
The manufacturing process is called “additive” because the products to be fabricated by overlaying (“adding”) material layer by layer. The feeder material is first prepared and subsequently thermally coalesced – for example by means of a laser beam – to form a three-dimensional structure. This enables fabrication of a practically unlimited variety of forms which can also be configured to models found in nature (bionics). The manufacturing process, which often entails use of complex material mixtures, can only be thoroughly controlled end to end in the industrial high-end range by digital means. Siemens is a pioneering leader in the pursuit of these techniques thanks to its additive manufacturing infrastructure, rigorously thorough approach to digitalization, and decades of expertise in industrial components
Additive manufacturing from plastics
Our components made from plastic meet the current fire protection standard governing rail transport technology and engineering. The finished parts may also be supplied with completed protective paint coatings. Siemens’ Competence Center for Additive Manufacturing in Erlangen, Germany is equipped with multiple fused deposition modeling (FDM) machines for printing with rail-compliant, fire-resistant plastics.
Additive manufacturing from metals
With the manufacturing possibilities available for metals using the powder bed fusion (PBF) process at the Competence Center in Erlangen, metal parts can be printed on demand – for example from stainless steel or aluminum. Siemens’ portfolio also includes the follow-up machining work.
- Industry standards governing additive manufacturing (certified by the German authorized inspection agency TÜV Süd (certificate designation: Additive Manufacturing) to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 requirements)
- Declaration of conformity and all required documents included with delivery, e.g. fire protection standards DIN EN 45545, stress analysis for strength verification (durability approval), and materials analysis
- Highest process stability and quality assurance
It’s beneficial and profitable in at least four cases, if not more.
You benefit from fabricating your spare parts by additive manufacturing in particular in the following circumstances:
- Parts required in only small quantities
- Highly specialized parts to customized demand
- If a component is no longer available because it has become obsolete
- If delivery lead times will be long, i.e. if no manufacturing capacities are available locally.
