CORDIS

A form of surface engineering, laser functional texturing is a key enabling technology that is relevant to almost every industrial sector, with applications ranging from anti-icing/self-cleaning surfaces to wear reduction and biocompatibility enhancement. It can offer significant benefits to manufacturers, such as cost savings, improved product performance and faster product development. However, the process is viewed by many as complex and costly, and there can be a lot of trial and error involved in getting the desired surface texture.

The SHARK project will address these challenges by industrialising laser functional texturing through a holistic approach, to boost the productivity, cost effectiveness and flexibility of the process, and ultimately build confidence in the process as a viable option for enhancing product performance, quality and reliability.

A group of 11 research organisations and market leading companies from across Europe have teamed up to increase the industrial uptake of laser functional texturing and unlock the benefits of the technology for european manufacturers.

Supported by funding through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for research and innovation, the project consortium will develop a fully integrated system that reduces production time with a ‘right first time’ approach through modelling of the process and in-situ inspection. The platform allows end users to test run the functionality obtained through laser surface texturing on their components, which significantly reduces risk and cost.

The project will also reduce the amount of component testing required through the establishment of a knowledge data management system and modelling software, and will provide a cost model analysis for implementing laser surface texturing in specific application areas.

Laser texturing has a wide range of applications in sectors as diverse as aerospace, medical, food and drink, power generation and tooling. The SHARK project is focusing on specific end use applications including anti-icing for ice cream production lines and controlled friction for high-friction discs.

The consortium consists of world class research organisations: Fraunhofer IWS (Germany), Heriot-Watt University (UK) and the Manufacturing Technology Centre (UK). Companies bringing their technology expertise are: ATS (UK), GF Machining Solutions (Switzerland), Sensofar (Spain), SIMTEC (France). End users providing application case studies in the power generation, medical, tooling and food and drink sectors are MAN Diesel & Turbo (Denmark), Johnson & Johnson (Ireland), Sandvik Coromant (Sweden) and Unilever (UK).

SHARK will advance laser surface texturing from the current ‘trial and error’, lab-scale concept into a highly predictable, data driven industrial approach by developing a digitally enabled knowledge management platform with a comprehensive database of process parameters and functionalities. This will enable the end-users to successfully employ this process with semi-skilled operators without the need for surface engineering experts and will, therefore, maximise the industrial uptake for the technology. The SHARK system will be configured as an Open platform independent of the laser source manufacturers, which for long, has been one of the main limitations for the process.

Work in Period 1 (Month 1 to Month 18) has focussed on:

* Defining Industrial requirements and specifications for the four end user sectors.
* Defining KPI for Business and operational requirements of the final system.
* Understanding laser scanning strategies and surface functionalities
* Defining software specification for each end user case study
* Defining the integration management system and architecture required.

SHARK’s system will be underpinned by a number of technology advances. Two laser surface texturing technologies will be developed, both based upon nanosecond fibre lasers. Pseudo Random laser texturing and Direct Laser Interference Patterning will be employed, offering complementary techniques to yield a highly flexible tool capable of delivering a wide range of functional surfaces with exceptional productivity and excellent process efficiency. The project will develop surface texture predictive modelling to rapidly define key process variables required for specific surface functionalities. This will be combined with inline surface characterisation to enable rapid feedback and inbuilt quality assurance.

The project will deliver:

• Cost savings: The capability to deliver surface functionalities into real products for less than 10% of the cost of the conventional part.
• Improved product performance: More than 20% improvement in product performance based on the surface functionalities deployed
• Faster product development
• A strengthened global position for European manufacturing