EMO Hannover is the world’s premier event and leading tradeshow for the metalworking industry and ran this year from the 16th– 21stof September. This year saw around 117,000 attendees, visiting from more than 150 countries worldwide.
As stated by EMO’s general commissioner Carl Martin Welcker, EMO boasts “international character, a high caliber of visitors and exhibitors and an amazing wealth of innovations and new products” and Autodesk fits right in, time after time.
As the flagship “international fair” of the metalworking industry, EMO has a strong international profile. More than half of all attendees come from outside of Germany, split almost evenly between other European countries and overseas. 2019 saw a 20 percent growth in attendance from oversea visitors, in comparison to the 2017 event. This included a high percentage of Asian guests, who accounted for almost one third of visitors from abroad, with China, Japan, Taiwan and India heading the rankings. Other countries with strong representation at the event included Italy, Poland, Sweden, Russia, and Turkey.
Autodesk EMO Smart Manufacturing
At EMO 2019, Autodesk’s theme was the convergence of design and manufacturing, showcasing how integrating new Smart Manufacturing technologies can help our customers optimize their design-to-manufacturing process to create highly differentiated, cost-effective, and competitive products that meet today’s market needs. With this in mind, Autodesk displayed a variety of products, customer stories, and experiences for our visitors.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory – Interplanetary Lander
Advanced, new approaches to the search for life beyond our planet begins with Autodesk. The JPL interplanetary lander, designed and manufactured by Autodesk in collaboration with NASA, was the real showstopper at EMO this year. The NASA team used the lander project to explore how the latest manufacturing technologies can be used to reduce weight (payload) and the associated fuel requirements needed to get the vehicle into space and beyond. The lander consists of different parts that were designed with a specific method of manufacture in mind – including additive 3D metal printing, 5-axis CNC machining, and components that were designed to be produced using sand casting processes. Using generative design, the NASA team has been able to iterate designs more rapidly than they could before, with design cycles being reduced from 2-4 months down to 2-4 weeks.
Image 1. NASA JPL Lander steals the show
Volkswagen Concept Wheels
Another headline act at EMO 2019 was the inclusion of two generative designed wheels produced in conjunction with Volkswagen’s Innovation and Engineering Center California. These impressive wheels were part of a bigger project to showcase how emerging technologies are shaping the automotive industry. The EMO exhibit consisted of two wheels produced using CNC machining and additive manufacturing. The latter representing a 20% reduction in the rolling mass of the wheel compared with traditional methods of manufacture.
Image 2. Volkswagen wheels are 20% lighter using generative design
Once drawn into the booth by these impressive exhibits, visitors were spoilt for choice on what to admire next. The PowerMill hero model, Matsuura generatively designed fixture, General Motors seat belt bracket, BAC Mono steering upright, and Claudius Peters’ clinker cooler, were all exhibited, showcasing the range of manufacturing technologies provided by Autodesk.
Autodesk EMO Partnership Highlights
For Autodesk, the percentage of visitors to the booth from countries outside of Germany stood at around 35%. However, our international presence was showcased significantly through our global partnerships. Haas Automation (Oxford CA), had several of their CNC machines running live demonstrations programmed with Fusion 360. Mazak (Nagoya Japan) launched a new Integrex i-300S AM hybrid machine, choosing Autodesk PowerMill for the 5-axis additive programming, whilst promoting Fusion 360 with the new SmoothAi controller. In addition, both PowerMill and Fusion 360 were featured on the Matsuura Machinery booth (Fukui, Japan) promoting hybrid manufacturing using their range of Hewlett-Packard polymer printers and the new MX850 5-axis machine.
Follow these links for video footage showing some of our machine tool partnerships at EMO;
Matsuura MX850 Hybrid Manufacturing
Mazak i-300S AM – Hybrid Manufacturing More Production Ready
Virtual Reality Experience
This year Autodesk also showcased a VR experience, where visitors could be immersed within the world of smart manufacturing from the perspective of the automotive manufacturing supply chain. The VR experience combined interactive exhibits with insightful video clips to explain how emerging technologies, such as generative design, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, additive and hybrid manufacturing are combining with traditional workflows such as subtractive CNC machining and metrology to radically transform how the vehicles we drive will be designed and made in the near future. The VR experience allowed visitors to handle parts and experience exhibits up close and in person.
Image 3. Visitors to EMO enjoy the Autodesk VR experience
So much more…
With a presentation theatre, demonstration workstations and meeting spaces, Autodesk’s EMO booth was a great meeting point for customers, visitors and employees for this 6 day event.
