Eastern European twinning on Structural Integrity and Reliability of Advanced Materials obtained through additive Manufacturing

Project Information

SIRAMM

Grant agreement ID: 857124

DOI

10.3030/857124

Project closed

EC signature date 20 June 2019

Start date 1 October 2019

End date 31 March 2023

Funded under

• Twinning of research institutions

Total cost

€ 797 651,25

EU contribution

€ 797 651,25

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA TIMISOARA
Romania

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SIRAMM (Eastern European twinning on Structural Integrity and Reliability of Advanced Materials obtained through additive Manufacturing)

Reporting period: 2021-07-01 to 2023-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a relatively new technological production tool enabling the creation of lighter, stronger and optimized parts by a digitally-driven deposition or solidification of material. Also known as "3D printing" or "rapid prototyping", AM allows reaching new frontiers in building parts made of various materials, spanning a large dimensional scale. For the above-mentioned reasons, deep knowledge and full control of the AM process are crucial for its future development and exploitation.
The main goal of the SIRAMM project is to bring the Polytechnic Univ. of Timisoara (UPT, project coordinator, Romania) to the level of excellence of the other EU countries by transferring the existing knowledge in the field.
Two other partners from low R&I performing countries are also involved: the Faculty of Mech. Engineering, Univ. of Belgrade (UBG, Serbia) and the Institute of Physics of Materials, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (IPM, Czech Republic). To achieve this goal, SIRAMM has created a network with two internationally leading countries at EU level: the Norwegian Univ. of Science and Techn. (NTNU, Norway) and the Univ. of Parma (UniPR, Italy).
SIRAMM aims at implementing a new scientific approach to the production of AM elements to be finally transferred into a post-graduate university course at UPT whose contribution to knowledge will last well beyond the duration of the project.
The specific objectives, achieved through the implementation of 5 work packages (WPs), are:
1. Enhancing the scientific and technological capacity of UPT.
2. Increasing the research profile of staff and young scholars of all the partners.
3. Creating a hub of excellence on AM in Eastern Europe, involving the scientific community, the industry and the society.
Within objective no. 1, the main goal is to understand how the AM printing parameters influence the mechanical properties of the printed material, opening the way to a new material design philosophy.
As for objective no. 2, by the collaboration in preparing research papers published in high-impact journals, SIRAMM is increasing the research profile of the three participating widening countries; the workshops and the conferences brought together research institutions and universities from Europe and beyond, increasing the scientific visibility of the partners.
To reach objective no. 3, SIRAMM aims at increasing in the widening countries the awareness and confidence in the use of AM for the environmentally friendly production of safer and reliable load-bearing elements.

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 work done within WP1 consists of:
- the 1st Workshop on 'Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Materials' (SIAMM21), organized at UPT, 25-26 Feb. 2021 (in presence & online) with 104 participants from 12 countries (D1.1 M12). A special issue of the J. Material Design & Processing Comm. (Wiley, Scopus) with 10 papers have been published.
- a seminar for students organized by UBG in Zlatibor with also the participation of companies.
- the staff exchange foreseen in the 1st year of the project started in M16, because of the impossibility to travel across European countries due to the COVID-19 restrictions.
As for WP2, the activities have just started and we are now organizing the 2nd Workshop on Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Materials (SIAMM22), to be held at IPM, Brno, Czech Rep., 11th-12th February 2022.
Within WP3 the SIRAMM consortium has:
- organized the 1st Winter school on 'Trends on Additive Manufacturing for Engineering Applications' at UPT, 24-28 January 2021 (in presence & online) with 167 participants from 21 countries (D3.1 M11);
- prepared the teaching material for the course on AM at the faculty of mechanical engineering at UPT (offered for the first time in the academic year 2020-2021);
- the PhDs exchange foreseen in the 1st year of the project is planned to start in M19.
The activities performed in WP4 consisted of:
- preparing and updating the project’s website (released at M1, D4.1 M3);
- communication to the general public through press release
- publishing the first and second issue of the SIRAMM Newsletter (March 2020, March 2021) (D4.3 M6);
- preparing the Plan for Exploitation and Dissemination of Results (PEDR) (D4.2 M6);
- organizing a one-day seminar for companies (11th June 2021 at UPT) and a four-day seminar on AM for students and companies (29th June – 2nd July 2021 at Zlatibor, Serbia);
- joint research publications in high-impact journals: so far, 5 papers in int. journals and 5 in proceedings in 2020, and 7 papers in int. journals in 2021 have been published by the consortium members (http://www.siramm.unipr.it/Publications.htm);
- organization of the East Europe Conf. on AM materials (EECAM21), Univ. of Belgrade, Serbia, 2nd-4th September 2021.
- organization of symposia devoted to AM in the MedFract1 conference, title: ”Integrity of AM components” (Athens, Feb. 26-28, 2020) and in the 1st VECF conference, title: ”Additive materials” (29June-1July 2020).
Within WP5 the consortium has:
- organized, planned and managed all the activities;
- organized periodic meetings in presence (kick-off meeting) and online or in hybrid mode;
- communicating the activities of the project to the general public through local newspapers and TV;
- developed a Research Quality Assessment Plan to monitor the scientific quality and the Twinning collaboration and the achievement of the research objectives.
- developed and implemented a scientific strategy for stimulating scientific excellence and innovation in the eastern European regions in the AM field.

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)

The project results obtained so far have led to several advancements in the comprehension of the mechanical response, safety level, and reliability of materials obtained through AM. In particular, the fracture and fatigue behavior of samples produced by using the fusion deposition modeling (FDM) has been experimentally studied. Moreover, a multiphysics theory has been developed to simulate the production process of polymeric materials through photopolymerization technology enabling the production of high-quality parts with extreme geometric precision, suitable to be used in small-scale applications.
We expect to proceed in this direction for the rest of the project by developing, on the basis of the experimental, theoretical and computational aspects, new approaches to further understand how to manage the additive manufacturing process in order to fully control the quality of the final products. This approach allows us to introduce the new concept of ‘material by design’, applicable to all the AM technologies available nowadays.
The knowledge acquired in the field of AM has been shared among all the partners of the SIRAMM project; they have also established new contacts with local start-ups, local industry partners, academia, government officials and international companies and gained new competencies suitable to transfer the outcomes of this emerging production technology for the beneficial use of companies and to the society.
Dissemination and communication activities e.g. newsletters, promotional material, local newspapers, videos as well as the 1st winter school and the 1st workshop have created a general awareness of the project. not only in the academia but also in the general public at local and international level.

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