Cold Spray Technology into Industry: A new Hybrid Additive Manufacturing Centre to address production and industrialisation challenges.

Within the last two decades, Cold Spray (CS) has developed from a laboratory deposition technique to an established technology for numerous tailored applications in military, aerospace and energy sectors. However, CS’s unique benefits as coating and additive manufacturing (AM) process can potentially be leveraged to many more and diverse industries. To realize such new opportunities, industries require better and broader access to the technology for application development, demonstration and product validation. To bridge the gap from research centers to industrialization in a wider and more diversified market, a new Hybrid AM Facility was created. This state-of-the-art industrial facility integrates Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing (CSAM), in-situ machining, advanced robotics and digital manufacturing concepts. At this facility, companies can benefit from partnering with subject-matter experts in a confidential and customized production environment to address specific manufacturing and industrialization challenges, de-risk investment and reduce time-to-market for their solutions. Systematic data collection allows to analyze performance, evaluate costing and product quality in pre-production. Current and projected activities include AM of large-scale freeform stiffening structures; pre-production of high-volume and massive components, advanced CAD/CAM supported toolpath, build- and in-situ machining strategies for complex structures, near net shape parts and large components. Case studies will be presented.