Multi Material Additive Manufacturing with Electrostatic Cold Spray

Introduction

While additive manufacturing (AM) is deemed the future of industrial production for its exceptional freedom in design, several technical limits hinder its full exploitation.

Energy Consumption and Limitations

Surprisingly, the most diffused AM techniques (e.g. LPBF) are associated with almost 4 times higher energy consumption compared to conventional manufacturing processes. Additionally, these techniques are more limited in:

• Build rate
• Build size
• Material selection
• Surface quality

We need to re-invent AM to tackle these challenges and expand its market to uncharted areas.

Project Overview

In MadeCold, we will achieve a real breakthrough in this direction by merging solid state and electrostatic physics, control and monitoring, and mechanical design with material science to develop a disruptive solid state deposition process.

Revolutionary Principle

The revolutionary principle of MadeCold is to charge and accelerate metal powders to supersonic velocities in a customized electric field. We will take benefit from the kinetic energy to induce bonding upon impact with a substrate; this has not been done before.

Methodology

Relying on our preliminary results, we will:

1. Implement multiscale computational models and advanced experiments to develop a single launcher to prove bonding efficiency.
2. Via a new control system, pair multiple launchers to exhibit the capacity of MadeCold for covering simultaneously a theoretically unlimited surface, compared to the point-wise print of the current AM.

Performance Expectations

We will demonstrate that MadeCold outperforms existing technologies regarding:

• Accuracy
• Deposition rate
• Flexibility
• Scalability

This approach paves the way to depositing functional multi-material structures with unprecedented properties.

Key Sectors

We intend to prove this in 3 key sectors:

1. Aerospace
2. Energy
3. Hybrid manufacturing

Each sector will have specific proofs of concept.

Conclusion

We are confident to achieve the overall objectives via a sophisticated multi-disciplinary approach based on scientific investigations and the exploitation of discoveries to establish Europe as a leader in advanced manufacturing.