UL Additive Manufacturing Competency Center
Global safety organisation, UL, has announced the official opening of the newly established UL Additive Manufacturing Competency Center (UL AMCC) at the University of Louisville. Developed for established additive manufacturing technical and business professionals, the end-to-end 3D printing training centre, located on the University of Louisville campus, will be a hub for advancing AM knowledge.
To coincide with the opening, UL has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with industrial 3D printing company, EOS, in which the two companies will collaborate to provide joint AM training, conformity advisory services and facility safety management to EOS customers. The goal of the relationship is to promote the proper usage and advancement of AM technologies to the manufacturing industry.
“As the world-leading industrial 3D-printing solution provider, EOS forms strategic partnerships to strengthen our core competencies of systems, process and materials,” Glynn Fletcher, President, EOS of North America, Inc., commented. “Our partnership with UL allows us to join with our customers – both current and future – to push advancements in innovation, safety and quality.”
The UL AMCC joins the university’s global advanced manufacturing campus, the Institute for Product Realization (IPR), and offers hands-on training in metal additive manufacturing including design set up, corrections, machine set up, part production, post-processing and parts inspection, testing and validation. The training will allow professionals to understand how to produce metal parts and emerging materials through additive manufacturing, and establish safety systems, identify hazards from materials and machines and manufacture parts with safety built into designs.
Simin Zhou, vice president of UL’s Digital Manufacturing Technologies division, commented: “Our vision has always been to collaborate with the additive manufacturing industry to further innovation, safety and quality. The UL AMCC is a direct outcome of that collaboration. The University of Louisville, AM machine manufacturers and other industry leaders demonstrated incredible commitment in the creation of this facility.”
David Adams, CEO of the IPR, added: “The UL AMCC is a first-of-its-kind facility with the technical and educational expertise to not only progress additive manufacturing but also contribute to the future of manufacturing transformation. We see the intersection of industry information, UL’s training, certification and safety knowledge and the University’s additive manufacturing expertise and academic research creating a manufacturing environment unlike anything else.”
