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Excerpt

Together with Mahle, Trumpf and Zeiss, Porsche has developed high-performance pistons for the Porsche 911 GT2 RS. The pistons are assembled from 1200 layers within 12 h by means of 3-D printing using the laser-metal fusion process. This process, which is also used for rapid prototyping, makes it possible to reduce development time by 30 %. The bionic design, in which significantly less material is used, reduces the weight of the piston by 10 %. According to Porsche, a reduction of up to 20 % would be conceivable. In addition, cooling channels could be introduced, which lowered the temperature in the piston ring area by 20 °C. Thanks to the lower weight of the components, the engine speed of the six-cylinder boxer engine could be raised by 300 rpm, which increased the peak power of the unit by 22 kW. For cost reasons, the process is only used in prototype production and racing in the short term; in the medium to long term it may also be used in small-series production.

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