The ExOne Company announced it has opened a Metal 3D Printing Adoption Center at its European headquarters in Gersthofen, Germany. The mission of ExOne’s Adoption Centers, which have locations in the U.S., Germany, and Japan, is to allow customers to try binder jet 3D printing for their designs before they decide to buy an ExOne 3D printing system for their own production. The investment announced represents an expansion of ExOne’s longtime Adoption Center in Europe, which 3D prints sand molds and cores for metalcasting customers. ExOne’s Metal Adoption Center now offers manufacturers end-to-end engineering services for direct-metal binder jet 3D printing, including benchmarks, design support, and materials, process, and work cell development. Binder jetting is a high-speed method of 3D printing in which an industrial inkjet printhead selectively deposits a binder into a bed of powder particles creating a solid part one thin layer at a time. When printing metals, the final part must be sintered in a furnace to fuse the particles together into a high-density solid object. All new ExOne metal printers, such as the X1 160Pro manufactured on-site in Gersthofen, are now offered with the company’s patented Triple Advanced Compaction Technology (ACT), which delivers industry-leading accuracy, density, and repeatability in binder jet printing. ExOne has now qualified more than 20 metal, ceramic, and composite materials for its binder jetting process. More than half of those materials are single-alloy metals, such as 17-4PH, 316L, 304L, M2 Tool Steel, Inconel 718, and more. Most recently, ExOne announced that 6061 aluminum is now a Customer-Qualified material, and titanium is now fast-tracked for qualification in partnership with a global medical device firm.