"Additive Manufacturing (AM) offers unrivalled flexibility in terms of part geometry, material composition and production volumes. It is beginning to revolutionise the high value manufacturing sector and in particular the aerospace and medical implant industry, enabling complex, lightweight, high performance parts to be produced with less material waste and more economically. Unfortunately,despite the clear potential, there are many parts that would benefit from AM but the process productivity is too low. There is, therefore, an urgent need for more productive AM systems to move this technology into mainstream manufacturing.
In the INSPIRE project a comprehensive programme of experimental, theoretical and development work will be conducted to address some of the critical challenges which must be overcome for widespread adoption of AM for the manufacture of production parts within the civil aerospace and medical implant sectors."
Awaiting Public Project Summary
Additive Manufacturing (AM) offers unrivalled flexibility in terms of part geometry, material composition and
production volumes. It could revolutionise the high value manufacturing sector and in particular the aerospace
industry, enabling complex, lightweight, high performance parts to be produced with less material waste.
Unfortunately, despite the clear potential, until recently AM has been largely restricted to the production of
prototypes and components for rig testing.
In the RAMP-UP project a comprehensive programme of experimental work will be conducted to address
the critical challenges which must be overcome for widespread adoption of AM for the production of “flying”
production parts within the civil aerospace sector.
Knowledge Transfer Partnership
To transfer and implement agility system tools and techniques to realise ambitious, business critical, lead time reduction.
The project aims are twofold; firstly, to develop a new generation of self-healing alloys suitable for Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes and secondly; to develop a metallic manufacturing process that takes advantages of the flexibility and environmental credentials offered by AM and the precision offered by subtractive manufacturing to pave the way for the manufacture of novel components with critical feature tolerances of sub 10 microns. A knowledge gap exists between these two manufacturing methods at this level of precision, which once unlocked, will allow the design engineer of precision mechanisms to be more innovative, and hence more effective, in achieving multifunctional components. It is vital to develop the link between the two processes to meet the ever increasing challenges faced by the mechanisms engineer in terms of weight, structural integrity & functional performance. By developing new self-healing alloy materials, tailored to the AM process and to the design engineers' needs for higher strength-to-density ratio materials, in a single project that aligns the full supply chain, ensures efficient and synchronised use of funding.
At least 25% of the process time for high value manufactured components arises from machining. CNC machine tools are programmed to produce geometry to a nominal form and surface finish, sources of error in the machining system impact on the cost, quality and delivery. These sources are split into those induced by the condition of the machine tool system and those induced by the behaviour of the work piece. The consortium, comprising machine builders, solution providers, academic institutes and end users, will collaborate to produce a predictive software tool that uniquely integrates both machine and machining models to provide prediction and visualisation of component geometry and surface finish. Machine users will be able to model the effects on part accuracy of machine, work holding, and part flexibilities during a cutting cycle, and design their part programs accordingly, thereby reducing prototyping and production downtime. Machine builders will use the tool to improve the design and efficiency of new product development. The modular solution is a stepping-stone to an all-encompassing model for controlling the accuracy of the machining process.