Collaboration

Collaboration to ensure that research is directed towards industrial need and focuses on real problems

The University of Sheffield has an excellent track record for collaborating with industry. RAPOLAC involves industrial partners at the highest level to determine research needs, and works with manufacturing end users, machine suppliers and supply chain companies, to ensure that the research results can be spread throughout the aerospace manufacturing supply chain and benefits can be shared with all partners. RAPOLAC is a university-led initiative to encourage expertise throughout the supply chain creating a generation of highly skilled workers and keeping knowledge and jobs within Europe. 

The SMD cell is operated jointly by the University of Sheffield and by local SME Footprint Tools. Within the project, material characterisation will be carried out by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. A control system will be developed by Università degli Studi di Catania and embedded in the mechanical model of the robot to be developed by SAMTECH in order to perform mechatronic simulations. Models of the deposition/solidification process will be developed by Intec – Universidad Nacional Litoral. A cost/benefit analysis will be carried out by DIAD to compare SMD construction to traditional manufacturing routes and this will allow a business case to be put forward encouraging take up by SMEs. Of particular interest will be hybrid manufacture, which involves the deposition of material onto cast/forged structures, rather than machining these parts from larger material blocks. The time and material savings are expected to make SMD an attractive option for the manufacture of large aerospace parts. METEC will perform administrative and other management tasks.

While RAPOLAC will concentrate on aerospace materials such as titanium, which are expensive and difficult to machine due to the very properties that make them prized in these applications, once SMEs have the technology, further research can be carried out to look at other, cheaper materials which could be used in different manufacturing sectors. Through the partners’ links with aerospace companies such as Rolls-Royce, EADS, Smiths Aerospace, Messier-Dowty and Hamble Structures, SMEs who use the process will be connected to aerospace firms who wish to use it. There has already been interest in this process from several aerospace companies – further work to define material properties, widen the range of materials and to control the process will ensure its prompt use in industry. At the end of the funding period, activities initiated under the project will be continued through commercial exploitation of the results and expertise acquired.

European Dimension:

International co-operation is required to develop and validate SMD as experts in each of the fields necessary for the successful development of the SMD process are located in several countries. The collaboration of partners from a number of regions demonstrates the European nature of the aerospace manufacturing industry. There is one non-EU partner in the consortium, INTEC from Argentina. They have been included in RAPOLAC as they are experts in modeling weld solidification which is essential for bringing about full automation.