Jan 30, 2018 | By Tess
Australian metal AM specialist Aurora Labs has partnered with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia’s national science group, to advance the former’s metal 3D printing technology and additive manufacturing applications on the whole.
Through the agreement, Aurora Labs will provide CSIRO with one of its small-format metal 3D printers and metallic powders up to a value of A$100,000. CSIRO, for its part, will offer Aurora Labs technical research and development services up to the same amount.
For Aurora Labs, the partnership marks a significant step forwards in the establishment of its own Additive Manufacturing Solution Centre, which will provide consulting services to clients as well as distribute and market the company’s metal 3D printers, metal powders, and printed parts.
Presently, Aurora is acting as the proxy for its Solution Centre, until it is officially established as a legal entity. When this happens, the company says its agreement with CSIRO will be automatically transferred to the Additive Manufacturing Solution Centre.
“This is an exciting collaboration and we are incredibly pleased to be working with a tier-one partner such as the preeminent government research organization CSIRO,” said David Budge, Aurora Labs’ managing director. “The research agreement speeds up the development of our solution centre, enhances our credibility, as well as endorses the technical performance of our technology.”
As mentioned, Aurora Labs will be supplying CSIRO with one of its small-format metal 3D printers (perhaps its S-Titanium printer with a build volume of 150 × 150 × 500 mm) as well as metal powder materials. The 3D printer will reportedly be installed at CSIRO’s Lab 22 Innovation Centre in Melbourne, a facility dedicated to providing companies with access to state-of-the-art 3D printing technologies.
“Our Lab22 Innovation Centre is focused on helping companies harness the benefits of metallic additive manufacturing, which we believe creates enormous opportunities for innovative products to be developed and new businesses and jobs created in Australia,” said Leon Prentice, the research director of High Performance Metal Industries at CSIRO.
“We are pleased to be working in partnership with Aurora Labs to develop this Solution Centre, and we look forward to its future success and impact on a range of industries. Aurora Labs are an important part of the Australian metal manufacturing value chain, and CSIRO’s goal is to grow the entire ‘powder to product’ process in Australia,” he added.
The R&D services that CSIRO will offer to Aurora Labs through the partnership will include labor and overhead costs; documentation on optimizing Aurora’s 3D printing process, as well as the “outcomes of CSIRO’s research and testing”; specialist services in the form of replicative and generative design services; and a general report on how 3D printed metal parts fared under testing.
One of the goals of the collaboration between CSIRO and Aurora Labs could be to accelerate the latter’s development of a large-format metal 3D printer, capable of printing up to one tonne in a 24 hour period. According to the company, “no global competitor has a printer which combines the Large Format Printer’s targeted print size with its targeted speed and precision.”
Currently, Aurora Labs is in the process of testing a prototype which could take it to the next step in the development of its Large Format Printer technology. Simultaneously, the company is also manufacturing a “pre-production model” of its first Medium Format Printer.
Posted in 3D Printer Company
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