Nov.20, 2014
Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) has launched a €1.1m metal 3D printing programme that could revolutionise manufacturing industries in Ireland.
The South East Applied Materials Research Centre (SEAM) at WIT will lead the programme, working with Boston Scientific, a leading medical device multinational; Schivo, an indigenous precision engineering company; and Lisnabrin Engineering, a tool manufacturing County Enterprise Board company.
Metal 3D Printing is forecasted to revolutionise the factories of the future. The innovative Metal 3D Printing programme will research metal laser sintering technologies to develop components who's geometry is sufficiently complex that they do not lend themselves to conventional machining.
The project, which is part funded by Enterprise Ireland under its Innovation Partnership Programme (IPP), will run for two and half years with engineering staff from the three companies working alongside researchers from SEAM in a new space adjacent to the existing SEAM laboratories at WIT.
Speaking at the launch, Dr Ramesh Raghavendra, Centre Manager of SEAM and Principal Investigator (PI) for this multi-party project said, "The new technology we are developing as part of this challenging project offers enormous potential to manufacturing industries in Ireland as it allows streamlining of the manufacturing process by removing multiple process steps, reducing materials handling and the number of components in an assembly, as well as enabling rapid prototyping of functional metal components."
Posted in 3D Printing Technology
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