Henkel teams with HP for 3D printing platform

CORVALLIS, Ore.—Henkel Adhesive Technologies has joined the HP Open Materials and Applications Platform and will work with HP in its 3D Materials and Applications lab to develop customized, industry-specific solutions for HP Multi Jet Fusion customers.

The partnership comes after about a year of dialogue with HP as they were developing their open-platform business model for 3D printing, said Ashok Agarwala, global director, new market development for Henkel.

"They are the experts in their technology from a hardware and software standpoint, and they have a good knowledge base on the material side," Agarwala said. "However, HP recognized that to accelerate the adoption of 3D printing into industrial production, they needed to partner with companies that are experts in materials development."

Henkel has worked with HP in the past as a supplier and in terms of assembly operations, he said. In the next few months, Henkel's technical teams will work alongside HP's teams to establish a rapport and start working on samples of materials for use with HP's 3D printers. Together, they will test various material formulations to find which ones fit the open platform MJF technology.

One aspect of the partnership is helping HP find the right parameters for 3D printing materials, especially as the technology still is being developed, Agarwala said.

"Injection molding has been around for many, many years, and has reached a level of standardization where it's very well parameterized," he said. "But that's not the case with 3D printing. It hasn't reached that level of maturity."

Any material that would possibly run through the MJF would need to go through a lot of testing, tweaking and development, which is where Henkel comes into play. Henkel initially will focus materials development on its polyamide platform, which is used for adhesive, sealant and coating applications. As a material, it can be very malleable, and can be tailored to meet specific customer and industry needs, said Agarwala. Formulations will be done by Henkel, and tests run in HP's Corvallis lab.

"We know the chemistry quite well. We have a good control and handle in tweaking the formulation and changing the melt parameters to application and process needs," he said. "That is the crux of what I think we're working on with HP, because we have to put those capabilities of the material in the process they have today. Working hand-in-hand with them is going to be so critical."

The partnership provides a mutual learning opportunity for both companies, as HP is broadening the latitude of the printer to accommodate a variety of materials. For Henkel, "hopefully, it brings further reinforcement in our relationship not only as a material partner, but also that we can bring total solutions jointly to the industrial additive manufacturing community and accelerate the growth of that space," Agarwala said.

The partnership also is a step toward creating a presence in 3D printing, which is a segment that Henkel has been monitoring for some time. Now that some of the hype surrounding consumer 3D printing has died down and industrial applications are coming into focus, the time is right to get involved, Agarwala said.

"That's where the real applications are happening as we speak. All this in aerospace, automotive, medical," he said. "Until now, the majority of applications have been prototyping. But I think there are a lot of efforts and a lot of companies that are really looking into how they can make customized, low-volume products or products with geometries not possible with traditional manufacturing.

"I'm not saying it's going to replace injection molding in the foreseeable future. But the value proposition of 3D printing is very much in getting new design freedom, if the part is complex and cannot be made traditionally because you cannot create a tool for injection molding."

Currently, no new jobs will be added for this partnership, and commitments will be met using internal resources, according to Agarwala. Time will tell whether it will create new jobs in the future, he said.

"This is strategic to us, not only this partnership but the whole area of 3D printing. Our senior management believes in it, and they certainly see 3D printing as an additional solution in our toolbox of products and services we provide to our customers," said Agarwala. "It's a new manufacturing paradigm and with our history of integrated industrial assembly solutions, it's one which we think we are well-suited to help advance."