Boosting the scientific excellence and innovation capacity in additive manufacturing of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca

Project Information

AMaTUC

Grant agreement ID: 691787

DOI

10.3030/691787

Project closed

EC signature date 2 December 2015

Start date 1 January 2016

End date 31 December 2018

Funded under

• Twinning of research institutions

Total cost

€ 999 443,75

EU contribution

€ 999 443,75

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICA CLUJ-NAPOCA
Romania

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - AMaTUC (Boosting the scientific excellence and innovation capacity in additive manufacturing of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca)

Reporting period: 2017-04-01 to 2018-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The H2020 AMaTUC project is a three-year EC funded project entitled “Boosting the scientific excellence and innovation capacity in additive manufacturing of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca”. The project started in January 2016 and the activities will continue until December 2018. 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing (AM) have made significant progress within different research laboratories across Europe and all over the world. In some EU countries, mainly in Eastern Europe, there are few industrial applications of AM. Companies need support and best practice examples of technological transfer from the latest achievements at the University laboratory research levels, to the industrial environment. These include practical AM applications that could be implemented only if their efficiency is proved, at least for small volume production of the customized parts.

It is important for small and medium sized companies (SMEs) to take advantage of the latest developments in AM, especially when it comes to 3D printing of complex metal parts, as the cost of such AM equipment is high.
The outreach activities organized by the AMaTUC consortium are spreading knowledge regarding the benefits of modern 3D printing technologies, to the general public, students, high-schools and clusters of specialized companies.
The user community is informed about the latest AM opportunities and benefits, in order to contribute to better strategy development for SMEs, to generate new successful businesses in the field of 3D printing.

The overall aim of the AMaTUC project is to boost the scientific excellence and innovation capacity in additive manufacturing at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (TUCN) and its high-quality Twinning partners for the benefit of the automotive industry and personalized products markets. To achieve this aim, the three year project will build upon the existing strong research and innovation base of TUCN and its twinning partners Loughborough University (LbU), FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences (ACUAS) and Intelligentsia Consultants (Intelligentsia).

The AMaTUC partnership is implementing a research and innovation strategy focused on three sub-topics:
1. Improve existing AM technologies,
2. Integrate the AM technologies with suitable Rapid Tooling methods, and
3. Design for competitive manufacturing of personalized products and computer aided analysis and simulation.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The partners exchanged staff for training and knowledge transfer for a total of 60 months in three years. This activity allow the AMaTUC partners to define topics of common interest, improve their scientific excellence in AM research as well as developing new opportuinities for future collaborations as described below.

Several billateral grants were funded such as the Bridge Grant “3D Printing Optimization for customized dental applications” (OpTi-DeP). This Grant is coordinated by Prof. Nicolae Balc (Registration no. 101BG/2016).

A joint project proposal was submitted to the H2020-MSCA-RISE-2016 call: “Directional Composites through Manufacturing Innovation” (DiCoMI). This proposal coordinated by Prof. R. Ian Campbell (Loughborough University – UK) was successfully evaluated and the entire AMaTUC consortium is now collaborating in the DiCoMI project.

Scientific articles were published to disseminate the main achievements and one patent was registered by the AMaTUC partners during this period.

The staff exchanges between TUCN and ACUAS representatives included 14 individual visits from TUCN to FH Aachen and 17 individual visits from ACUAS to TUCN. The main topics were training on integration of AM technology with conventional manufacturing techniques, training on industrial AM parts made of composite materials, and training on advanced AM techniques to combine with RT of metal parts. The training of the TUCN academic staff during the exchanges was very useful and the staff members were able to increase both their knowledge and research capabilities. A beneficial effect on their activities after they returned to their home university was that they managed to publish papers within peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.

Other outcomes from the staff exchanges were two new successful projects awarded by the National Research agency from Romania.
Three training workshops were organized in Romania during the first period of the AMaTUC project, one at Cluj-Napoca (26 May 2016) and two at Brasov (27 May 2016 and 4 November 2016).

Three AMaTUC summer schools were organised by the partners ACUAS, LbU and TUCN while six workshops were organised during the course of the project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

There has been a significant increase in the expertise of the AMaTUC partners within the field of AM. The excellence and innovation capacity of the AMaTUC partners goes beyond the state of the art by improving the AM technologies, by integrating them with suitable Rapid Tooling methods, and by developing new Design for AM methods, to produce personalized products using 3D printing.

Thirteen scientific articles were published by the AMaTUC partners in this period, as a result of the very good cooperation within the AMaTUC activities.

The AMaTUC activities are in accordance with the smart development strategies adopted by the Romanian government. The achievements of the AMaTUC project were highly visible and have produced a significant impact with wider social implications, e.g. the new three national projects won by the AMaTUC partners are addressing at least one company involved in AM, in order to increase the efficiency of developing new AM applications.
The AMaTUC partners attended many conferences organized in Romania, Germany, UK and elsewhere in Europe, both to disseminate the results of the AMaTUC project and to learn from other expert’s lectures.
The AMaTUC website was officially launched on the 25th February 2016, in both the English and Romanian languages. Six news articles have been published and seven documents are available as downloads. In order to track efficiently the traffic on the AMaTUC website, Google Analytics has been implemented and the following statistics were collected for Period 1: a total of 6055 pages have been viewed by 1039 visitors which is a very good statistic for a Twinning project.

ACUAS AMaTUC team, during the staff exchange at TUCN, May 2018

Learning from the industrial experience of the AM applications implemented by MAN company

Learning new AM efficient applications

Final AMaTUC Consortium meeting - Aachen, 3rd of December 2018

How to set up your own 3D printer

PhD research undertaken by Julia Kessler, with joint supervision from FH Aachen and TU Cluj-Napoca

93 papers were during the AMaTUC Conference, 45 papers being prepared by international participants

Live TV interview on the 21st of January 2018, at TVR national TV channel, to present the AMaTUC act

Presentation of Mr. Flavien Massi, at the AMaTUC-MTeM Conference, in October 2017

The 3rd AMaTUC Summer School, Cluj-Napoca, September 2018

Training sessions, during the 2nd AMaTUC Summer School, at Loughborough University, in in July 2017

Visiting the FabBus – mobile 3D Printing laboratory, at MTeM-AMaTUC Conference

Presenting the co-operation between Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and FH Aachen

Presenting the co-operation between Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and Loughborough University

Increase the cooperation of the AMaTUC partners with the AM team from Brasov