Completed Materials & Manufacturing Engineering

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

Funder InnovateUK (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation High Value Manufacturing Catapult Source-published name: High Value Manufacturing Catapult
Funding £4.2M
Period Dec 2013 — Mar 2014

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A factory inside a research centre takes raw metal powder and turns it directly into finished jet engine parts, skipping the usual steps of casting, machining, and assembly. This matters because additive manufacturing—3D printing for industry—has struggled to move beyond prototypes. Most companies cannot risk using printed parts in real products without proof that every stage of production is reliable. The National Centre for Net Shape and Additive Manufacturing solves that by demonstrating the entire process chain at industrial scale, from design to finished part, with full monitoring and control. It has already run over 100 projects for companies ranging from aerospace giants to small firms with no prior experience in the sector. If this work succeeds, UK manufacturers will adopt additive manufacturing faster and more confidently. That could shorten supply chains, reduce material waste, and allow production of complex shapes impossible with traditional methods. The centre also plans to build a digital twin of the process—a virtual replica that predicts how a part will behave before it is printed—which could cut development time dramatically across industries from medical implants to automotive components.

View original technical description
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.

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Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing
High Value Manufacturing Catapult for MTC Aerospace Centre
START - Subtractive Technologies for Additively Realised Test-parts Manufactured Parts
Efficient Manufacturing for Aerospace Components USing Additive Manufacturing, Net Shape HIP and Investment Casting
THEDUS: Enabling Technologies for Large Component Manufacture in Next Generation Additive Manufacturing

Original classification

Centres

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