Articles
New metals offer significant technological and commercial benefits to manufacturers in a variety of industry sectors such as aerospace, medical, rail, automotive and even consumer jewellery.
A New Dawn for Metals, a seminar to be held by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, will introduce manufacturers to the researchers and product development experts who can help them to apply advances in materials research to gain competitive advantage or develop new products. The event will take place on 14 March at the Boeing Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Rotherham.
Dr Paul Guerrier FIMechE, the seminar organiser, said: “Although many of the processes being discussed at this event are commercially available now, they are by no means in the mainstream. If you research, make or buy metallic parts, the technologies presented at this seminar will affect you, your peers or companies in your supply chain.
“You need to know about these processes, because they will enable you or your supplier to make a new or cheaper product or seize a new business opportunity.”
Leading experts will be offering advice on such processes as pressurised vapour deposition, friction stir welding and metal forming – all of which could have exciting applications across a wide range of industry sectors.
Additive manufacturing, another of the featured processes, could help companies to make significant savings, as Guerrier explained: “Weight-critical applications like aerospace parts are probably the simplest to illustrate. How about saving 30% of mass from a metallic part? It’s a big deal, but with additive manufacturing it is possible.
“Imagine the effect of this type of saving across a number of components. This will set pulses racing at a typical aerospace design review. The techniques on offer will allow organisations to reduce material in their products, save cost, save resources and cut energy consumption, such as reduced fuel per mile for a civil aircraft that weighs less. For a supplier, being able to sell that saving to a big manufacturer like Boeing or Airbus is enormously significant.”
Guerrier stressed the range and quality of the speakers at the seminar: “The academics will be presenting techniques with a lower technology readiness level (TRL), which run in a university laboratory, while the industrialists will be presenting techniques that are commercially available now, and therefore have a high TRL.
“Delegates might see something that they want to access now that can offer immediate savings for their company or enable the creation of a product for a new or existing market. Alternatively, they can take inspiration from any of the speakers and invent a new process or apply an existing one in a new way.
“For example, one of our speakers, Professor Papken Hovsepian of Sheffield Hallam University, will be talking about how to create extremely thin metallic coatings to improve the machining of aluminium or titanium. The process could also be used to create a hard surface layer for wear reduction.
“Delegates will be able to see some of the techniques in action at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.”
Receiving funding for innovation could be crucial to smaller companies in particular. Guerrier said: “In the last 15 months, the Technology Strategy Board has made available to small and large companies and academia just over £20 million of investment into advanced materials, sustainable manufacturing for the process industry and inspiring new design freedoms in additive manufacturing or 3D printing.
“Trying to navigate successfully through the funding process can be daunting, so coming along to this event will help you to access this funding.”
For Guerrier, the decision to attend this event is an easy one: “If you know none of the technologies being presented, quite simply, at some point, you will get left behind by your competitors. If you already know some of the technologies, you will never have had access to so many academic and industry experts at one time and in one place, all hosted near Sheffield: the UK’s spiritual home of metal.”