A cornerstone of tomorrow’s additive manufacturing factories
Additive Manufacturing (AM) of metal parts has made significant progress over the past two decades, particularly in the field of selective laser melting DMLS (direct metal laser sintering). Today DMLS is considered as a viable alternative for producing near net shape metal components but for relatively small markets where accuracy and surface quality requirements are less stringent. In order to bridge the gap with mass market applications, MAESTRO aims at tackling the current limitations of DMLS in terms of productivity, cost and speed. Read more
Our Goals
Check out our goals in 5 points.
1
Single pre-process software
The numerical chain will be merged into a all-in-one compatible software combining mandatory steps and configurations that are currently split into three different applications to prepare the Additive Manufacturing: importation of CAD files, conversion of geometry in .stl , automatical design of support structures, creation of additive production files, integration of thermo-mechanical simulation of the manufacturing process, topology optimisation.
2
Hybrid MIM / DMLS manufacturing
The fabrication of a preform will be done using MIM (Metal Injection Molding) which will dedicate the DMLS specifically for complex parts requiring greater accuracy and less time use for the more generic parts of the assembly. The objectives are formulating and characterizing metal powders (properties comparable to 90% of the same forged material); mold tooling (reduction of cooling time by 40%) and manufacturing parts with a minimum density of 99% compared to forged material.
3
Adaptive process control
Thermal and mechanical on-line monitoring will identify process problems by developing hierarchical process control solutions (in situ monitoring sensors) and integrate in-process 3D measurements for the interfacing of laser AM technologies with complementary post-processing machining technologies. This would guarantee the quality of the products.
4
The modular DMLS additive manufacturing platform
To ensure the good integration of all modules in a platform, these prerequisites will make the link with the existing post-processing procedures, prepare high-resolution data preparation tools and improve the thermal and mechanical properties of the final product. The modular SLM additive manufacturing platform will be tested with characterization samples (tensile, compression, bending, density, hardness, roughness …) to validate the built parts’ quality. The monitoring systems will have to be able to detect the faults and then realise a trigger to stop the production or adapt the laser exposure parameters.
5
To reinforce the EU leadership in DMLS
An open demonstration platform to reinforce the EU leadership in SLM: In this project, the platform will host the four end-product demonstrators brought by the industrial partners together with three additional ones selected from external companies, through a contest event. The platform will be open to outside companies willing to integrate the project innovation in their future products. A satellite group is already set up for this proposal to gather potential end users at the end of MAESTRO project.
