Digital Qualification Platform for Advanced Alloy Components

在这个项目中，一个由冶金、机械工程和机器学习领域的世界专家组成的团队将合作建立一个增材制造（“3D打印”）的数字认证平台。增材制造（“AM”）有可能改变大量先进部件的制造方式。与其他制造技术相比，它可以制造出更轻、更复杂、更实用的物体，并且使用更先进的材料，而且它可以使用更少的原材料和完全数字化，因此不需要工具。充分利用增材制造可以改变低能耗、低排放的飞机和汽车的前景，这些飞机和汽车由更可持续的燃料提供动力，并在电子、医疗植入物和许多其他市场创造新的机会。然而，增材制造面临着一个主要的采用障碍：设计最佳组件的成本，以及毫无疑问地证明只要需要，它就可以安全地工作。在航空航天领域，这一直是一项挑战，也是一笔开支，需要花费数百万美元进行昂贵的试验，但对于增材制造来说，这是一个特别的障碍，因为增材制造是一项由数十亿个微小焊缝组成的新技术。这个项目旨在建立一个未来，在这个未来中，新材料和部件的设计和证明完全是安全的，通过计算手段，节省了多年的时间和数百万英镑，并加速了航空航天和其他领域的创新。为此，它将为增材制造材料和组件建立一个数字认证平台，包括软件包计算模型和世界一流的实验设施，并通过在波音飞机试飞项目期间建造的热交换组件的认证来演示该平台。一旦应用于增材制造，该平台将扩展到加速创新，降低成本，减少传统制造中的浪费。该项目还将创造46个高技能新工作岗位，到2035年将超过2500个。这个为期四年的项目将由位于牛津的高增长技术企业合金化公司领导，包括波音公司、增材制造硬件制造商雷尼绍、TWI有限公司、英国原子能管理局、帝国理工学院以及曼彻斯特大学和谢菲尔德大学。

In this project a team of world experts in metallurgy, mechanical engineering, and machine learning will collaborate to build a Digital Qualification Platform for Additive Manufacture ("3D printing").Additive Manufacture ("AM") has the potential to transform for the better the way a vast range of advanced components are manufactured. It can create objects that are lighter, more intricate and functional, and made from more advanced materials than other manufacturing technologies, and it can do so using less raw material and completely digitally, so no tooling is required. Full use of AM could transform prospects for lower-energy, lower-emission aeroplanes and cars, powered by more sustainable fuels, as well as creating new opportunities in electronics, medical implants, and many other markets.However, AM faces a major barrier to adoption: the cost of designing an optimal component, and proving beyond doubt that can do its job safely for as long as it is required. This has always been a challenge and an expense in aerospace, requiring many millions spent on expensive trials, but it is a particular hurdle for AM, as a novel technology which builds up a component from billions of tiny welds.This project aims to build a future in which new materials and components are designed and proved safe entirely by computational means, saving years of time and millions of pounds, as well as accelerating innovation in aerospace and elsewhere. It will do this by building a Digital Qualification Platform for AM materials and components, including software-packaged computational models and a world-class experimental facility, and demonstrating the Platform through the certification of a heat exchange component built during the project for test flight on a Boeing aircraft.Once applied to AM, the Platform will then be extended to speed innovation, decrease costs, and reduce waste in traditional manufacture. The Project will also create 46 highly-skilled new jobs now and over 2,500 by 2035\.The four-year project will be led by Alloyed, a high-growth technology business based in Oxford, and include Boeing, Renishaw, the manufacturer of AM hardware, TWI Ltd, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, Imperial College, and the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield.