The investment has been backed by UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, as well as the Aerospace Technology Institute, and it boosts the facility’s machining capacity from 2,600 by 1,500 by 850 mm to 2,600 by 4,000 by 2,000 mm.
AMRC Castings is part of the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and is based on the Advanced Manufacturing Park at Catcliffe, near Sheffield. The organisation develops new castings technologies and provides design and manufacturing consultancy services.
The CMS Poseidon has been tailored to machining dimensionally accurate polystyrene replicas that are then coated with ceramic and employed in the creation of the moulds used in AMRC Castings’ Replicast and MEGAshell processes. In addition, the machine also supports the machining of sand moulds for AMRC Castings’ Patternless process, which sees mould and cores cut out of blocks of bonded sand.
The subsequent moulds will be used in combination with a new furnace for the casting of titanium aerospace components. To be installed at AMRC Castings’ headquarters later this year, it will be the biggest such furnace in Western Europe and will enable UK companies to break into global markets for near-net shape large-scale titanium aerospace engine and structural components weighing up to 500 kg - a market exclusively dominated by the US. This facility has also received support from the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.
AMRC Castings’ Richard Gould says: “Any UK company wanting to break into the market would have to develop the know-how themselves, but we aim to build up the know-how for the benefit of the UK advanced manufacturing and aerospace industries.
“The new CMS Poseidon machine is very fast, while retaining a very high degree of accuracy, and will be ideally suited to making moulds for marine propellers, large-scale valves and other critical components for the oil and gas, renewables and wider energy markets, as well as aerospace.
“Within renewables alone, applications could include tidal energy systems that incorporate functional performance related hydraulic passageways that need to be made to tight tolerances, with an as-cast working surface geometry.”
When not being used for research, the CMS Poseidon could be used to make moulds for castings producers, provide them with the knowledge transfer services that they require in order to introduce the process themselves, or produce complete castings for users.
Gould says even companies that plan to produce higher volumes of castings using traditional wooden patterns could benefit from using Patternless moulds produced on the CMS Poseidon to validate new manufacturing techniques.
