GEFERTEC's arcTitan Seals Titanium Printing in an Inert Chamber

A WAAM machine built around one metal

GEFERTEC has launched the arcTitan, a wire-arc additive manufacturing system designed from the ground up for titanium. Most WAAM machines handle a range of metals, but titanium is the awkward one. It reacts easily with air, and a stray bit of oxygen or nitrogen during a build can weaken the finished part. GEFERTEC's answer is to seal the whole process.

How the arcTitan works

The platform pairs a fully enclosed build chamber with a plasma-based welding process. The chamber holds an inert gas atmosphere at an oxygen level the company quotes at 10 to 15 parts per million, low enough to keep the melt pool clean. Plasma welding gives fine control over heat input, which the company says keeps part quality steady across long builds.

The numbers are worth a look. The build envelope runs 2000 by 700 by 1000 millimeters, the deposition rate reaches up to 3 kilograms per hour, and the system is modular, so GEFERTEC can tailor it to a specific customer.

Why titanium, why now

Titanium earns its keep where strength and weight both matter, which is exactly the profile aerospace and energy buyers want. Those industries also demand repeatable results, and that is the gap GEFERTEC says the arcTitan closes. As Johannes Zuckschwerdt, the company's managing director, put it, the challenge with titanium is making the process conditions reproducible, and every part of the machine, from gas handling to wire feeding, was built for that material.

What it means

This is a focused industrial launch rather than a general-purpose printer. But it shows where wire printing is heading: instead of forcing a tricky metal through a machine built for everything, vendors are designing the chamber around the material. For shops already machining titanium parts, a sealed WAAM cell could shorten lead times and cut buy-to-fly waste.

Read the full technical breakdown from TCT Magazine on the GEFERTEC arcTitan launch.