PlasMan - High integrity manufacture

The turbo-charger market continues to grow at a CAGR of 10% as manufacturers design leaner and more fuel efficient engines. This project will boost sales of production equipment for this market, an important export market for Aquasium Technologies that will be worth £12m per year in 2022. The PlasMan project will examine the feasibility of adopting a novel plasma cathode electron beam welding technology for the production of turbo-chargers. The project will build and test a system and provide the necessary bridge to allow integration of the technology. The operational data collected will be used to quantify the benefits of adopting the technology and will be used to promote sales of the equipment against more conventional competitors, and emerging laser welding machines. We will also investigate and assess the potential for using the technology in new emerging markets of additive manufacturing, micro-machining and vacuum melting. The technical capability of being able to rapidly pulse the electron beam and much higher consistency output are particularly suited to these markets.