Delcam to lead lightweight metal products additive manufacturing project

The project will see an empirical set of trials, benchmarks and demonstrators undertaken, with gthe aim of making it easier for the whole UK manufacturing supply chain of designers and manufacturers to adopt the technology. Called LIGHT, it began on 12 December, with a kick-off meeting at Delcam's Birmingham headquarters and is being undertaken by a consortium of seven organisations that, in addition to Delcam, includes Bloodhound SSC, HiETA, CRDM/3DSystems, EOS, Simpleware and Magna Parva. The project is receiving £495,000 of support from the UK's innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board. Three test parts have been identified from HiETA Technologies Ltd., Magna Parva and Bloodhound SSC, which will push the boundaries for additive anufacturing. Stuart Jackson, manager at EOS, commented that the LIGHT project will "...push towards the optimum solution of additive manufacturing, making things lighter, better and more economical." At the kick-off event, Johnny van der Zwaag, project manager at Delcam, offered initial thoughts on the integration of a computational CADCAM tool for lightweight product design and AM. Within this work package, a library of lattice structures will be created to satisfy the wide range of specifications within industry. Test parts were also on the agenda, with the conclusion being that they will need to withstand extreme conditions, such as temperatures up to 500°C and an attempt at a new World Land Speed record (via the Bloodhound project) - additional challenges for the team, but one that "will also make for an exhilarating 30 months". Project Coordinator, Chris Lewis Jones, also from Delcam, stated that the three demonstrator parts, as chosen by the end-users, represent 'extreme-engineering', with a focus on performance, rather than on design. This is a unique approach that, it is said, will test the capabilities of additive manufacturing technologies to its limits.