News & Events

RAPOLAC in the news

•"Robotic Manufacturing by Shaped Metal Deposition: state of the art" - An overview of the SMD process and RAPOLAC results is given in Industrial Robot in December 2011

•"Process reduces waste in titanium manufacture" - An article in The Engineer in 2010, following up the original story from August 2008

•Interviews with UK-based RAPOLAC partners appear in the Sheffield Star and the Yorkshire Post

•RAPOLAC's final press release was covered by TCTonline, Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing, RiDO, the Business Desk, and Rotherham Business News.

•"Hive of Activity" - An article by award-winning journalist Bill Read in the July 2010 edition of Aerospace International, profiling work in the AMRC, including the RAPOLAC project.

• "Europe aims for an end to tooling" in the March 2010 edition of Flight International, discusses advatages of SMD and some applications.

• "Shaping Up" in the June 2009 edition of Materials World, profiles RAPOLAC and discusses additive manufacture.

• Members of the Rapolac team at the AMRC starred in a BBC News report about job creation in South Yorkshire. Garry Hibbert and Dave Spafford were shown controlling the SMD cell, while research director Keith Ridgway explained how the AMRC is creating manufacturing jobs in difficult economic times.

• “Robot on the Wire”, The Engineer, August 2008
• “Cutting Edge”, Dec/Jan issue of Engineering, 2008
• “Adding Value”, Metalworking Production, Nov 2006
• “Hand Tools for Hi-tech Robots”, Sheffield Star, Aug 2006

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Technology on the Road

The AMRC has won a grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to take advanced manufacturing techniques on the road.

MANTRA is a specially equipped HGV, fitted with the latest manufacturing equipment. It will introduce companies to the latest production engineering techniques, that have enabled partner companies to make significant improvements in productivity.   Contact Natalie Hutchinson for more information, or to schedule MANTRA. n.hutchinson@amrc.co.uk

MANTRA show-cased RAPOLAC results at MACH2010 and is due to visit the Royal International Air Tattoo in June. Other visits include:

• Denmark, Sept 09
• Civil-service live, Olympia (London), UK, 3 days July 09
• RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo), UK, 3 days, July 09
• EPSRC launch at a Dorchan Technology College, Swindon, UK June 09

A PDF of the RAPOLAC banner is available below:
RAPOLAC MACH banner

9-10 September - TRAM'09

Fundamental research in aerospace manufacturing, cutting edge industrial practice

The aerospace industry has changed significantly in recent years with new materials and manufacturing methods are used in an attempt to get maximum performance for minimum cost. The conference was aimed at both industrialists and academics and was equally of interest to those involved in aerospace manufacturing and manufacturing technology suppliers. TRAM09 focussed on four key areas:

• New materials
• New manufacturing technologies
• Assembly technologies
• Supply chain management.

Bernd Baufeld (Katholieke Universiteir Leuven), Gustavo Escobar (University of Sheffield) and Luciano Cantelli (Università degli Studi di Catania) at TRAM09

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