High Value Manufacturing Catapul For The National Centre For Net Shape And Additive Manufacturing At The Manufacturing Technology Centre

The National Centre for Net Shape and Additive Manufacturing, housed within the existing MTC facility, demonstrates the entire additive manufacturing (AM) process chain at an industrially relevant scale – taking raw material and part designs to produce fully-finished parts, where every stage of the process is carefully monitored and controlled. With expertise across all stages of the AM process the centre provides pragmatic and unbiased support to UK organisations interested in AM. Support follows a three-phase approach: discovery (explanation of AM and selection of appropriate process); demonstration (redesign, production and validation of demonstrator part); and pre-production (transition from demonstrator to full-scale production). The Centre has delivered over 100 projects for companies across the supply chain: OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers and SMEs – including assisting SMEs with no previous experience of the aerospace sector to develop novel AM processing equipment, creating significant new market opportunities for them. Future work will aim to industrialise physical AM processes, and demonstrate how an effective digital twin can have a significant impact on the speed of delivery of the technology across a wide range of industries.