Birmingham, 6 May 2014 - Delcam to lead ambitious project on additive manufacturing for the UK
manufacturing industry
The UK’s manufacturing sector is set to benefit from a major research and development project called
ACCLAIM (ACcelerated CLAdding and Integrated Machining). The project’s kick-off meeting was held at
the headquarters of Delcam, in Birmingham on 18th February. Led by Delcam, ACCLAIM is an even more
ambitious renaissance of the 2008 Technology Strategy Board funded project, RECLAIM.
The ACCLAIM project will be undertaken
by a consortium of ten organisations
that, in addition to Delcam, includes
BAE Systems, BOC Group, Cortus,
Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies,
Kennametal Stellite, Magna Parva, the
Manufacturing Technology Centre,
Bombardier and Warwick Manufacturing
Group. This group, working with a budget
of over £1 Million, represents a businessled team that involves industrial partners
encompassing hardware, software and
consumables suppliers, together with
key end-users and process experts.
ACCLAIM project partners and Helen Lucas, Technology Strategy Board
Monitoring Officer
The project is receiving approximately £694,000 of support from the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology
Strategy Board. With this support, ACCLAIM aims to address some major and growing problems within the
additive manufacturing (AM) sector. Limiting factors such as cost, time and resource needed to finish parts
after an AM build as well as improving the mechanical performance of AM built parts will all be addressed in
the project.
The projects has 3 primary but complex goals:
•
•
•
Creating new AM parts based on Plasma Transfer Arc (PTA) cladding technologies
Developing novel techniques to reduce thermal stress during part creation
Adapting an integrated machining process to enable fully finished components to be produced
Each of these goals are intricate and technically demanding, however the project members are enthused by
the possibilities and potential of excellent weld quality, low capital/running costs, very high deposition rates
and material flexibility. To that end, everybody is primed and ready to start the numerous investigations and
developments.
During the kick-off meeting, all partners presented their high expectations and expected effort for the coming
period. Steve Hobbs, Project Chairman and Development Director at Delcam, recognizes the potential and
opportunity of the project, particularly since many of the ACCLAIM partners are also veterans from the RECLAIM
project. He believes their shared experiences and technologies form a strong collaborative foundation for their
future work. David Wimpenny, Technology Manager at the MTC, enthusiastically outlined the many pieces
necessary to be investigated and developed within ACCLAIM. However as a RECLAIM veteran, he cautioned
the consortium not to underestimate the technical challenges that partners must first overcome to be able to
produce a comprehensive and accessible industry-appropriate solution. All partners are motivated and want
to hit the ground running in anticipation of the challenges and opportunities of the project.
Acknowledgements
As the UK’s innovation agency, one of the main roles of the Technology Strategy Board is to achieve business
and economic growth for the UK. One way the organisation supports this is through funding innovative
Collaborative Research and Development (CR&D) projects. Collaborative research and development (R&D)
encourages businesses and researchers to work together on innovative projects in strategically important
areas of science, engineering and technology – from which successful new products, processes and services
can emerge, contributing to business and economic growth. Find out more about the CR&D programme here:
https://www.innovateuk.org/-/collaborative-r-d
For more information please contact:
Petra Lugtenburg – [email protected]