The goal of the Swansea Additive Manufacturing Research group is to understand and develop additive manufacturing processes (specifically powder bed laser fusion) through:

  • Development of novel metal powders
  • Characterisation of mechanical and thermodynamics properties of powders and as-built material
  • Computational simulation of all aspects of the process from gas flow, to powder/laser interaction at the microscale through to residual stress prediction at the macroscale
  • Novel applications with optimised functionality which take advantage of the geometrical freedom of PBLF
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Methods: Computational Engineering, Material Properties, Powder Metallurgy, Additive Manufacturing

Meet the research team

Academics: Dr Nicholas P Lavery, Professor Steve G. R. BrownProfessor Johann Sienz

Post-doctoral & post-graduate team: Adam Philo, Stuart Sillars, Steve Milward, Dan Butcher, Ian Cameron, Jordan Rosser, Rhodri Rees, Julian Evans, John Cherry, Mark Holmes, Shahin Mehraban

Case Study 1

Ongoing collaborations with Powder manufacturers Sandvik-Osprey, [10], can be seen highlighted at industrial conferences and trade-fairs such as RAPID, AMPM and EuroPM [10], [17]–[20]. Much of the work over 2016-2018 has focussed on the quality and multiple re-usability of 316L steel and aluminium alloys (Al-Si10 and Al-Si7) in the AM250 and the REN400 machines.

 

Figure 1 - (a) Typical array of bars for tensile tests built in the Renishaw AM250 for the 316L powder studies (b) Sandvik-Osprey 316L steel powder and (c) SEM characterisation of 316L gas atomised powder from Sandvik-Osprey

Case Study 2 Case Study 3