Freemelt

IHI Europe Ltd. is a part of IHI Group, a global enterprise headquartered in Japan. Since its founding in 1853 IHI has continued to contribute to the development of society through technology, designing and building progressive engineering solutions for people and the planet. IHI’s commitment to advancing the development of additive manufacturing (AM) technology is testament to this. In 2019, IHI Europe Ltd. alongside IHI Corporate R&D established IHI Additive Lab, a site dedicated to advancing the development of AM technologies.

IHI has been a loyal customer to Freemelt for a few years and one of the most skilled and experienced users of the research machine, Freemelt ONE. IHI has achieved great material process development results through their first Freemelt ONE machine and is expanding their research demand into additional applications, why the two parties have agreed to further expand the collaboration with a second Freemelt ONE machine.

Freemelt’s CEO, Daniel Gidlund comments,
“I’m so proud and excited that a global leading engineering company like IHI is extending their trust to Freemelt by adding a second Freemelt ONE machine into their operation. This shows that our products and services are providing great value over time to our customers. It’s also extra great to see that Freemelt ONE is fulfilling the demand and expectations from industrial customers, regarding material process and application development. Freemelt has a unique product-offering, supporting the customer from initial material research and product development to a seamless transfer to mass production in the industrial machine eMELT. We look forward to the continued collaboration with IHI and have high expectations for the outcome.”

IHI Europe’s Head of Advanced Technology Development, Rachel Jennings comments,
“Our very first Freemelt ONE system was purchased in the first half of 2019, at which point it had already been 3 months since we started the journey with Freemelt. The experience gave me a unique insight into its development, and it’s been incredibly rewarding to see and be part of the huge progress the machine has made since then. The open architecture of the Freemelt ONE is allowing IHI Europe to discover new, innovative and unique ways of processing materials. I hope Freemelt and IHI Europe can continue to work together to open the AM landscape to new and exciting materials.”

Freemelt ONE is optimized for materials research to introduce new materials and products in industrial applications faster. Freemelt has unique solutions within Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion (E-PBF) technology and extensive knowledge and experience in titanium, tungsten and copper material process-development, targeting mass production applications.