Lead time of spareparts is critical when you consider that downtime of large dredging vessels can cost up to €50.000 per day. In addition, weight reduction is desired to reduce the draft of the vessel. A project at Royal IHC was innitiated to investigate the potential of lead time reduction and lightweighting of certain critical components by using additive manufacturing. An existing hydraulic manifold was chosen as a suitable case study product to verify the capability of additive manufacturing.

Fransiscó was asked to redesign an existing manifold suitable for additive manufacturing. The redesigned manifold should:

• Withstand a hydraulic burst pressure of 350bar
• Be suitable for harsh off-shore conditions
• Be plug-and-play with the existing manifold, e.g. maintain the same port openings and valve positions

The result is a complete redesigned manifold, with only material in places were it is contributing to strength and functionality. The redesign has been additive manufactured using Electron Beam Melting and was successfully pressure tested up to 450bar. Weight of the manifold dropped from 13.8kg to just 900g.