LIGHT – Inspiring new design freedoms and LIGHTweight solutions for metal additive manufacturing

该项目将激发金属添加剂制造(MAM)，特别是选择性激光熔化(SLM)的新设计自由，以创造先进的轻量化结构和产品。MAM的一个主要限制是对建立悬挑几何形状的支撑结构的要求。这将被一种创新的CAD/CAM解决方案所克服，该解决方案利用智能的“自支撑”低密度格子结构(低至5%的体积分数)来有效地支撑轻量化产品的内部和外部悬垂几何形状。此外，还将开发端到端制造模拟和预演工具，以预测轻量化产品的可制造性和性能，并刺激设计自由和优化，从而降低MAM的材料和生产成本。该项目的目的是使英国汽车、航空航天和工程部门能够更有效地利用MAM技术。

This project will inspire new design freedoms for Metal Additive Manufacturing (MAM), in particular Selective Laser Melting (SLM), to create advanced lightweight structures and products. A major constraint of MAM is the requirement of support structures for building overhanging geometries. This will be overcome by an innovative CAD/CAM solution which utilises smart “self-support” low-density lattice structures (down to 5% volume fraction) to efficiently support internal and external overhanging geometries of lightweight products. Furthermore, an end-to-end manufacturing simulation and rehearsal tool will be developed to predict the manufacturability and performance of lightweight products and stimulate design freedom and optimisation which can reduce material and production costs for MAM. The aim of this project is to enable the UK automotive, aerospace and engineering sectors to more effectively exploit MAM technologies.