Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies Takes Lead Involvement in Novel Compact Wire-Fed AM Project

Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies (HMT, McKinney, Texas) has announced its lead involvement in an InnovateUK research project entitled “Fast-track development of a novel compact wire-feed system for Laser Additive Manufacturing” (FastWireAM). This project includes collaboration with TWI (Cambridge, U.K.), a company that provides engineering consultancy, and designer and manufacturer of superconductive wires, Epoch Wires (Cambridge). The project aims to accelerate the market uptake of HMT’s wire-fed AM solution in conjunction with novel-alloy wire feedstock produced by Epoch Wires.

The main objectives of this project are to demonstrate the advantages of the HMT interchangeable head using wire feedstock over subtractive manufacturing and current state-of-the-art wire Directed Energy Deposition (DED) techniques, as well as the added value of using Epoch Wire’s powder-cored wire feedstock. This will be validated through manufacture of select industrial use-case components.

The new system will be housed at TWI’s Yorkshire, U.K., facility, where the new wire-feed system will be integrated with the company’s KUKA robot cell. TWI will lead tasks relating to process optimization and performance mapping of the system for demonstrator production and third-party validation of its performance. The FastWireAM project has received funding with thanks from InnovateUK under grant agreement No. 81046.