Thu, 10 December, 2020
TWI is pleased to announce their involvement in an InnovateUK research project as part of the “Sustainable Innovation Fund” competition. The project entitled “Fast-track development of a novel compact wire-feed system for Laser Additive Manufacturing” (FastWireAM) is being led by Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies (HMT), supported by TWI and Epoch Wires. The project aims to accelerate the market uptake of HMT’s wire-feed system in conjunction with novel-alloy wire feedstock produced by Epoch Wires.
The main objectives of this project are to demonstrate the advantages of the HMT wire-feed system over subtractive manufacturing and current state-of-the-art wire DED techniques, as well as the added value of using Epoch Wire’s powder-cored wire feedstock. This will be validated through manufacture of select industrial use-case components with input provided by potential end-users including DGWeld and Weir.
TWI will be installing a new wire-feed system on their KUKA robot cell at their facilities in Yorkshire and will lead tasks relating to process optimisation and performance mapping of the system for demonstrator production.
The FastWireAM project has received funding from InnovateUK under grant agreement No. 81046
Image courtesy of Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies