Daimler and Forward AM’s joint goal was to radically accelerate the engine mount development process and at the same time achieve major cost savings. The new process needed to fulfill all the requirements for full validation through digital simulation, and the Additive Manufacturing material selected had to display comparable NVH performance to traditional injection molded parts when fitted to the latest Daimler aggregates.

To leverage the advantages of Additive Manufacturing for the new generation of Daimler engine mounts, two core criteria had to be fulfilled:

The AM material and 3D printed prototype needed to meet strictly defined thermal and mechanical performance requirements under test conditions.
The part performance of the 3D printed prototype under simulation had to be identical to that of the equivalent injection-molded component.

The perfect match for the challenge was Forward AM’s Ultrasint® PA6 MF, a mineral-filled polyamide 6 that outperforms PA11 and PA12 in every key mechanical and thermal stability aspect in this specific application. Furthermore, it ensures rapid and precise 3D printing with today’s Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) technology.

With the combination of Forward AM’s advanced Ultrasint® PA6 MF and BASF’s suite of digital tools, Daimler engineers successfully leveraged the full potential of Additive Manufacturing for the digital simulation, prototyping, and bench testing of their NVH optimized component. From this leading global manufacturer’s perspective, the result is a compelling advantage in terms of component prototype development speed and cost-efficiency.