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Interview with Michael Fuller, CEO of 3D Printed Heat Exchanger Firm Conflux Technology https://ift.tt/3vTczBY Michael Fuller heads up Conflux Technology, an Australian firm that uses powder bed fusion to make heat exchangers for automotive, racing, power electronics, power generation, and aerospace. The company has just received over $6 million in a Series A round from AM Ventures and Acorn Capital. Heat exchangers have seemed to be a market that 3D printing could not really play in because the gulf between conventional manufacturing’s costs and the costs of 3D printed parts. But, starting in niche areas such as Formula 1, 3D printed heat exchangers have been used very effectively. Conflux now wants to make them more ubiquitous through lowering costs and optimising designs. We interviewed Conflux Technology’s CEO Michael Fuller to find out more. We asked Fuller why exactly 3D printing was a compelling technology for heat exchangers.
So there lies the crux to the advantage of 3D printing in heat exchange. Not only can we reduce mass or integrate parts or reduce part count but we can also make a device different throughout its body so that the optimal geometry creates the optimal conditions for performance.
To help achieve this, Fuller sees design and post processing as playing important parts as well.
90% of Conflux’s customers are overseas and for now he sees “an aspirational horizon of 10,000 parts per year in series for micro electronics, machines making semiconductors, manufacturing machines. We’re not getting one on every motherboard. But, as we mature we’ll see more applications.”
Now the team will work on vertical integration and manufacturing.
Looking back on the path so far Fuller is happy that “we’ve been able to build a business, to take it from the first phase to profitable circumstance. Customers are buying what we were selling and we aim to be the best in the world in heat exchange.” Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com October 27, 2021 at 09:51AM
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