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Photonics Laser-based production

 

a. Research and Innovation Actions

From ""design to piece"" – Excellence in laser-based additive industrial manufacturing[[Theme a. is complementing the topic RTD-FOF1-2016]]: From Design to the final work piece, the topic addresses laser-based additive industrial manufacturing of metallic materials. All process chain steps may be addressed, for example CAD, modelling of the additive process, the additive process itself including the use of several materials in a single work piece, process control and quality assurance, the combination of additive and subtractive processes, surface finish and precision, etc. Materials for AM and their quality control are considered as a step. Proposals must cover at least two important steps in the process chain and the relevant links between them. The goal is to significantly improve the overall performance in terms of speed and costs whilst producing high quality work pieces. Standardisation aspects should also be addressed as appropriate. Proposals should be driven by concrete business cases and include the relevant partners of the value chain and proposals should contain an outline business case and industrial exploitation strategy, as outlined in the Introduction to the LEIT part of this Work Programme.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between EUR 2 and 4 million would allow this area to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

b. Innovation Actions

Rapid individualised laser-based production: Develop and set-up efficient, highly flexible high throughput pilot facilities on the basis of existing processes for laser-based production and to validate them in real settings. This will require advances in a number of aspects, including intelligent networking and machine cooperation, data handling, modelling, work piece handling, beam delivery, integration of different processes, monitoring, process control etc. Actions must be industry driven and include the key stakeholders running the pilot facility. Proposals should contain an outline business case and industrial exploitation strategy.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between EUR 2 and 4 million would allow this area to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Laser-based manufacturing has become very competitive and is one of the back-bones of modern production technologies. Highly accurate mass production is available for a wide range of products in a wide range of industries. Whilst laser processing is highly flexible, the change from one production lot to the next usually requires operator intervention, reconfigurations and costly down times to adjust current processing tools to the new task. The trend to individualisation requires a high degree of digitization as well as tools and systems which are highly autonomous and automated to reduce production time and costs.

Additive manufacturing (AM) offers a number of advantages over conventional manufacturing including the unprecedented freedom of design for example in terms of geometry, material composition and intrinsic properties of the work piece. Whilst laser-based AM is used for prototyping and has begun to penetrate some smaller markets, it is not yet competitive on a larger scale especially with respect to production speed and costs. In order to increase the productivity of laser-based AM and to bring it a significant step further towards industrial manufacturing a better mastering of all stages of the process chain and their interaction is necessary.

Proposals should describe how the proposed work will contribute to the following impact criteria and provide metrics, the baseline and targets to measure impact.

a. Research & Innovation Actions

  • Reinforced industrial leadership in laser-based Additive Manufacturing.
  • Substantially improved production speed, improved productivity and substantially reduced costs of laser-based Additive Manufacturing.

b. Innovation Actions

  • More efficient, more flexible and higher throughput of individualised laser-based production.
  • Improved competiveness and strengthened Europe's market position of laser-based manufacturing industry (equipment and suppliers) and the end-user industry.