This presentation was made at the 2019 NAFEMS World Congress in Quebec Canada

Resource Abstract

Additive Manufacturing technology is so widely acknowledged as revolutionary that on the short-term, it will alter the manufacturing and logistic landscape and on the long-term, it will have significant impact towards common climate goals, increasing competitiveness edge of national manufacturing, opening new product areas.

The principle five innovations, leading to the pilot line deployment, combined in this project named MANUELA are:

• Tailored recyclable metal powder, for robust and reliable part manufacturing

• Comprehensive pilot line dashboard allowing to design, simulate and follow the manufacturing process

• Full pilot line workflow optimization and automation

• Exploiting collected process data on the full pilot line and part, towards real-time in-line process monitoring feedback and process adaptation.

• Establish the qualification and certification standard for full chain process in the aim improve the productivity, particularly in such fields where the certification is mandatory: automotive, aeronautic and medical.

MANUELA will attain the above-mentioned ultimate goal through its three main objectives:

• Mature the Additive Manufacturing processes and functionalities from TRL 5 to TRL 7

• Six use cases demonstrating prototypes manufactured with the MANUELA pilot line in their operational environment (TRL 7)

• Establishment of an open-access distributed pilot line infrastructure with single entry point to exploit the full industrial potential of metal AM

The pilot line will be validated by the following 6 use cases from various different domains to Design and Manufacture, namely in Avionics, a helmet mounted displays (HMDs) components intended for Aerospace applications

• Space, a novel slip rings allowing energy and signal transfers for rotating actuators,

• Medical, a custom made cranial implants created by the usage of titanium alloy

• Power generation, components subjected to high thermo-mechanical stresses

• Automotive, a rocker for motorsport competition

• Energy, a gas turbine heat shields

This paper intends to illustrate the project methodology and its progresses from the software perspective, in respect of declared objectives.