HÖRMANN Vehicle Engineering (HVE) and its research partners have completed a 34-month project developing a tool-free, fully recyclable manufacturing process for large-format heavy-duty rail vehicle components.
The team validated the technology by producing two demonstrator parts for Siemens Mobility‘s ICE 3neo (Velaro MultiSystem, Class 408) high-speed train: its nose section and front skirt. The “3D-FiberTrain” project, funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the European Union, ran from September 2023 to June 2026.
A hybrid process built entirely on thermoplastics
Rail vehicle outer skin components are currently manufactured using thermoset-based composite techniques such as hand lay-up or vacuum infusion, processes that require expensive tooling, take significant time, involve heavy manual labor, and produce materials that are difficult to recycle.
The consortium’s alternative combines three technologies into a single process chain. Large-format, granule-based extrusion printing produces complex geometries without tooling. A newly developed 3D tape-laying process then applies continuous-fiber reinforcement to high-stress areas, following the component’s load path. Automated milling finishes the parts to the required dimensional accuracy and surface quality. Because every stage of the chain uses thermoplastic materials, the resulting components are fully recyclable, a distinction from conventional thermoset composites.
Validated on a high-speed train demonstrator
To test the process under realistic conditions, the consortium selected two demanding components from Siemens Mobility’s ICE 3neo, which operates at speeds up to 320 km/h: the train’s nose and front skirt. As lead of the consortium, HVE coordinated the project overall, defining requirements, design specifications, and structural validation for both demonstrator parts.
The consortium reports that the process offers lower manufacturing costs for small and medium production runs, shorter production times from the removal of tooling steps, and a reduced carbon footprint through more efficient material use and recyclability. It also provides greater flexibility to adapt designs and component variants without new tooling investment.
The completed components are presented as evidence that the hybrid process can meet the accuracy and performance demands of high-speed rail applications while eliminating the tooling investment conventional manufacturing requires.
A four-way research partnership
Beyond HVE, the project brought together Fraunhofer IWU‘s Upper Lusatia Plastics Center in Zittau, Fraunhofer IMWS in Schkopau, and Lakowa GmbH in Wilthen, with Siemens Mobility participating as an associated partner across the full development chain, from materials and process development through to structural validation of the finished parts.
HVE says it expects the tool-free process to reshape how the rail industry approaches small and medium production runs, positioning it as a step toward more sustainable rail vehicle manufacturing.
HVE’s wider push into 3D printing for rail
3D-FiberTrain sits alongside other HVE research project applying additive manufacturing to rail vehicle construction. LeiPo-3D-FKM, running from January 2025 to December 2027 with partners including TU Chemnitz and BMF GmbH, s working to bring metallic 3D printing into the FKM design guideline used across German engineering. The project is developing an additively manufactured steel alloy for FKM qualification and addressing factors like powder condition, AM system technology, and post-processing methods such as surface smoothing and compaction that the guideline doesn’t currently account for.
The project reflects a challenge HVE is trying to solve: while additive manufacturing offers potential for mass reduction in metal components, the lack of standardized design rules for 3D printed parts limits how widely companies can adopt it under existing engineering guidelines.
Closing 3D printing’s recyclability gap
3D-FiberTrain fits into a wider strategy in additive manufacturing to solve a persistent sustainability problem: most 3D printed structural parts, especially thermoset composites, cannot be reshaped, repaired, or recycled once cured. HVE’s decision to build its entire process chain around thermoplastics directly targets that gap, aiming to make large-format, structurally demanding parts recyclable by design.
Rail operators and suppliers have been pursuing thermoplastic-based strategies elsewhere in the sector. Stratasys released a new flame-retardant, glass-fiber-reinforced nylon built specifically for end-use rail production, developed through direct collaboration with Alstom and Siemens Mobility to meet EN 45545-2 fire safety standards while staying compatible with recyclable thermoplastic workflows.
Elsewhere, Deutsche Bahn certified Essentium’s flame-retardant thermoplastic materials for its High-Speed Extrusion 3D printer, a system it now uses to produce tens of thousands of replacement train parts.
Across these projects, the pattern is consistent: as additive manufacturing moves into more structurally demanding rail applications, thermoplastic materials are increasingly the foundation of the strategy, chosen specifically because they keep recyclability and repairability built into the part from the start.
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Featured image shows 3D-FiberTrain. Photo via Fraunhofer IWU, HÖRMANN Vehicle Engineering GmbH
