Cylinder heads reconstructed with 3D printing for Porsches
If you have the famous Porsche 550 Spider, 904 or 356 Carrera, you’re undoubtedly lucky. These models of cars have become even more valuable for the past few years. However, some peculiar components, like cylinder heads, are impossible to find. If they are damage or for some other reason need replacing, the only possible way out is reverse engineering or customized parts reconstruction. And the cheapest method to get them is 3D printing.
Reassembling complex constituents for such vehicles is extremely difficult for any design engineer, as usually the schemes are difficult to find, and also OEM-producers don’t provide them. If we consider the particular case of reassembling Carrera cylinder head, which is made of aluminum, it started with measuring the faulty head and scanning it.
Geometric reconstruction of the cylinder head
Camshaft bearing, valve guides, intake and exhaust ducts and seat rings, cylinder head screws and other details were to be installed as 3D base parts in a thoroughly planned process. After that, the producers were to turn all of them into running models and to add all the design details like fillets, site measuring and bevels.
Raw part with gating system
The German company CAD Support, Mössingen, completed the reconstruction in a geometrical way, after which the next important step was to produce sand cores. The project accomplishment, which was based on some conventional cores was impossible because of financial limitations. So they came up with the only possible solution – to create cores in a 3D printer.
The total order for 3Dprinting was made up of eleven cores. It all was sent to the voxeljet service center situated in Friedberg. That was a comprehensive experience to work with such a kind of projects. As they used voxeljet printer of the best possible quality, they were able to make a 2mm thin contour rib and they didn’t have to add extra supporting construction inside or outside.
Foundry Rauleder & Rudolf situated in Schwäbisch Gmünd specializes in developing and constructing unique constituents. It was they who made that molding. The great improvement of mechanical and physical properties was achieved due to the hot isostatic pressing (HIP) treatment and the reduction of pores.
Cylinder head
The last T6 heat handling caused the required strength of the cylinder head. The last stage of the whole production was achieved thanks to the 3D CAD files in a 5-axis machining center. When the completion was over, they got the aluminum cylinder head ready for use.