Additive Manufacturing

Valland3D is Valland’s in-house additive manufacturing division. Valland is one of the very few international valve manufacturers with integrated metal and polymer 3D printing capability — enabling rapid prototyping, complex geometries and reduced lead times for severe-service applications.

From experiments to a production division. Since its foundation in 2006 Valland has specialized in non-standard valve products; additive manufacturing was a natural extension of that approach. The company began experimenting with AM technologies in 2016, and the R&D team has since pursued the qualification of valve components produced by AM according to the reference specifications of the industry: DNVGL-ST-B203 (Additive Manufacturing of Metallic Parts), API 20S, API 20T and the work of the ASTM F42 committee.

Technologies and materials. On the metal side, the division specializes in Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF/DMLS), with experience extending to Binder Jetting, DED and WAAM. Parts are produced in stainless steel, duplex and super duplex alloys, Inconel alloys and other materials. On the polymer side, Valland3D operates FDM/FFF printing of pure and composite materials, hot-chamber FDM for high-performance technopolymers, and resin photopolymerization.

Digital warehouse. Valland3D engineers printable metallic and thermoplastic components — gaskets and valve subcomponents — whose files are digitally stored. New valves can be delivered together with the printable files of selected components: once the valve is installed, spare parts can be printed on demand. The benefits are concrete: no physical storage of spares, lead times of a few days down to a few hours, and distributed manufacturing close to the point of use.

Powder production. Valland is in the process of acquiring a laboratory-scale hybrid atomizer (VIGA + Plasma) to produce metal powders for additive manufacturing from traditional manufacturing scraps and by-products, for internal use and for sale.

Beyond valve components for the oil and gas and hydrogen ranges, Valland3D serves new applications in the broader energy and design world.