Duncan Kelly, consultant at innovation consultancy Ayming says the UK is a world leader in additive manufacturing (AM), but it needs to continue to invest in innovation to stay ahead of the game.
For over twenty years, AM has played an important role in supporting advanced R&D across a variety of sectors. Until recently, its primary role has been for prototyping and testing, but now over 50% of engineers use AM to produce end-use functional parts.
3D printing directly contributes over £500 million a year to the UK economy, but also has spill-over benefits for high-tech industries. More importantly, AM allows innovative companies to realise designs which would have been completely impractical to manufacture just a few years ago.
The UK is at the forefront of this growing industry, having been among the early adopters of the technology. This is good news, the AM market is expected to grow 10% annually for the next five years.
The vulnerability of existing supply chains has been underscored by COVID-19, Brexit, and many other factors over the last two years. When PPE and ventilator shortages gripped the nation, AM service providers rushed to help fill the gaps. These efforts were a mixed success, but one theme was consistent: 3D printers could be repurposed at the click of a mouse to help meet new demand for certain parts. And as a bonus, UK engineering companies benefit from faster delivery times when manufacturing takes place within the UK.
Adaptability is at the heart of the offering of AM, and this is hugely valuable when traditional supply chains are disrupted.
From an environmental standpoint, AM is a mixed bag. On one hand, it is generally wasteful and energy intensive. Raw materials need to be made into tightly controlled feedstocks, involving blasting molten metal with inert gas, before they can be used in machines and once the feedstocks have been manufactured, more energy is required to convert the feedstock into a finished part.
The primary environmental benefit of AM is the opportunity to design more efficient machines. AM parts can be designed to weigh much less than their traditionally manufactured counterparts, which can save fuel and electricity when the parts are actually used. It can be used to increase the performance of electric motors, heat exchangers, or even aeroplane engines. In doing so, it can be used to save huge amounts of energy over the life of the product, which outweighs the upfront energy use of the AM process itself.
However, the UK’s 3D printing industry requires continuous innovation to remain competitive. Faster, larger machines are needed as engineers seek to use AM for more and more challenging projects.
Engineers working in aerospace, automotive and oil and gas are becoming increasingly confident in the principles of the technology, but designers want high quality data to back this up. There is still more to be done in terms of quality assurance, and statistical approaches may be required to better control manufacturing processes. Government incentives such as UKRI grants, R&D tax credits, and local growth funds will continue to play a large part in this.
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