Wednesday 27 Aug 2014 @ 16:15
Technology Strategy Board
Technology Strategy Board
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Sucess Story- Leading a remanufacturing revolution
A research project co-funded by Innovate UK - the new name for the Technology Strategy Board - has led to Britain becoming a world leader in developing ‘game-changing' hybrid manufacturing technology.
This new technology combines the flexibility of additive manufacturing (better known as 3D printing) with the precision of high speed computer controlled machining and the quality assurance of in-process inspection.
Hybrid manufacturing offers significant benefits over additive manufacturing, machining or inspection on their own. The process can be scaled up or down to produce parts in a wide range of sizes, productivity can be up to 100 times higher, and accuracy and surface finish are on a par with existing precision manufacturing methods.
It also has lower capital investment costs than other metal additive manufacturing processes, and can be retrofitted to existing machine tools - bringing it within the reach of a much wider range of companies.
In the beginning
Between 2008 and 2012, the £1m Reclaim project (which received £537k of grant funding from Innovate UK) brought together eight partners from business and academia to reinvent remanufacturing.
The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, joined the consortium in its later stages to help test and refine the new process.
The project developed a hybrid manufacturing technology based on a multi-purpose machine. It brings together the separate elements of remanufacturing high value metal parts - additive manufacturing, machining and inspection - into one seamless, fully automated process.
A new spin-out company, Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies Ltd (HMT) was formed to commercialise this new technology in 2012.
"Without the support of Innovate UK this project would never have got off the ground," said David Wimpenny, Chief Technologist at the MTC.
How it works
The machine switches smoothly from one part of the process to the next, so laser cladding (where a laser melts metal wire or powder to deposit metal onto a component) can be immediately followed by precision machining and inspection.
A critical breakthrough in making this system possible was developing the laser cladding head, with its innovative ‘docking system'. This couples the laser, an inert gas supply and a metal powder feed to the cladding head when required - enabling it to be selected in the same way as a cutting tool or inspection head
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