The scope of the project for the reporting period has been advance the technological capabilities with respect powder-bed metal additive manufacturing with particular emphasis on i) materials and process development, ii) development of digital suite to facilitate integrated solution from design to manufacture along whole value chain; iii) development of post-additive processing, product control and automation, iv) development and deployment of advance on-line monitoring to capture and mitigate flaws in metal printing iv) development of coherent and appropriate means of powder and materials qualification procedures, v) with overall progress of realizing six advanced uses cases based on the innovations of the project. In parallel, the assessment of the capabilities in terms of capabilities and development of organization and structure have been addressed to strengthen the deployment of business use cases during the final stage of the project. With respect to “Multi Physics Simulation & Design for AM” this includes the completion of design optimization adaption, simulation tool adaption, manufacturing feedback interface and the future implementation per technology (laser powder bed fusion or electron beam melting) to deploy digital dashboard across the project. The “AM processing development” has delivered number of main results for number of materials for existing and tentative uses cases, while great improvements in build rate (productivity) by at least 200% have been proven for some of these alloys to full density. A material data base has been set-up. The application of on-line monitoring in case of both electron beam melting (EBM) and laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) constitutes an integral part of the process and materials development subject to hardware used. The development of “Post AM process development” has delivered results such as the combination of AGV and robotized solutions and integrated solutions for improved post-processing. The “Pilot line integration” has delivered overall development during the reporting period, with particular emphasis on defining generic ML-enabled feedback loop, the deployment and demonstration monitoring and analysis software with the validation of the additive manufacturing processes and joint benchmarking of demonstrator development. As means of proof-of-concept “use case design and acceptance” has delivered six uses cases including design and manufacture with the development of post-processing procedures with full qualification and acceptance of first use case. As support to implementation of the metal pilot line, “AM line qualification and standardization” has delivered qualification criteria for raw materials, initial risk factors and EHS mapping and acceptance criteria. In support for the technical and business development, “Customer relations, business planning and dissemination” has applied the tools and strategies for outreach to industry via third-party events, intensified the technology scouting and involved future potential customers for business use cases via number of open seminars, while development of future model of the pilot line has moved into an operational development stage.
