Ford Motor Company Restores Michigan Central Station with 3D Printing
3D printing is often reported for its applications in building houses, but rarely for its value in repairing houses, windows sills, or other details of architecture.
In fact, house repairing with 3D printing is cost effective and agile, if you can get the relevant data through 3D scanning beforehand.
Recently, Ford Motor Company shows a restoration project based on additive manufacturing for the remodeling of Michigan Central Station. The 100-year-old train station is in the arduous process of restoration.
Photo Credit: Stephen McGee
Ford has used additive manufacturing technology to make a steam Injector for Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.
For Michigan Central Station’s project, the team must restore some window elements and tiles with fine details. They got the basic CAD 3D models from 3D scanning the remaining tiles and other existing elements, then fine-tuned the models for 3D printing.
In total, hundreds of parts were printed by the team, including 550 parts for the wreath designs of the window sill.
It took several months for 3D scanning and 3 weeks for 3D printing.
This is not just an advanced engineering project, but also a collaborative one, and many parts are fabricated in house instead of at the site.
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