BMW 3D Prints 500th Water Pump Wheel for DTM Race Cars

BMW announced that one of their DTM racing cars has just been fitted with the 500th water pump wheel made on a 3D printer.

The high-precision component consists of an aluminum alloy and was 3D printed using Selective Laser Melting (SLM) technology.

In a race, the high-performance powertrains run up to 70 percent of the time under full load and moving parts in particular have to handle extreme conditions. This is why, back in 2010, the BMW engineering team developed a one-piece, light-metal water pump wheel to replace the previously applied series plastic part.

The BMW Group has applied additive production procedures in concept prototyping since 1991 and has developed the process further ever since. Depending on the specific requirements, the BMW Group uses different procedures. The Rapid Technologies Center at the BMW Group’s Research and Innovation Center in Munich works on close to 25,000 prototype requests annually, producing close to 100,000 components a year for in-house customers. Depending on the procedure and the size of the component, sample parts might be available within only a few days. They are applied, for instance, in vehicle development, at BMW Motorrad, and in motorsports.