Delcam to participate in high-value manufacturing project

The main aim of the project, which is receiving an investment of almost £3/4 million from the UK government-funded Technology Strategy Board, is to develop lightweight and sustainable products via material design optimisation and additive manufacturing (AM). This will lead to significant reductions in materials and energy consumption in the production of high-value products. As an innovative and promising material process technology, AM allows the rapid manufacture of sustainable products through new lightweight material structure technology, that utilises both metals and plastics more effectively. It has the potential to produce high-value aerospace, medical and engineering parts with minimum material waste and energy input. The SAVING project will focus on three areas: Material design optimisation will study lightweight structures. Process optimisation will look into the way that the design is implemented with the AM process. This will address part orientation, layer thickness, surface finish and mechanical properties while at the same time optimising for energy consumption and part quality. Sacrificial support structures that are used with the metal based AM systems, serve no useful purpose after the part is manufactured. Thus, in conjunction with the process optimisation, support design will be analysed and optimised to minimise energy and material usage. The other members of the consortium are Simpleware, Exeter University, 3T RPD, Crucible Industrial Design, EOS UK and Plunkett Associates.