Granta Design has been involved in several projects that have resulted in products useful to material information management for additive manufacturing. Through work in two European Framework Seven projects (NANOMICRO and AMAZE), Granta’s products will help users research, design, test, and simulate materials for various additive manufacturing projects.

Noted Granta in a recent press release, additive Manufacturing can benefit from the use of simulation and increased experimental automation of large quantities of materials information. But factors such as the need to accurately capture complex processing histories make this a challenge. Granta’s technology may help to meet this challenge.

In the 4-year project, ten partners have developed a layer-wise manufacturing approach using highly focused powder/heat fluxes (with dimensions in the microns range) for metals and cermets (ceramic-metallic composites). Granta’s collaboration with the University of Cambridge enabled simulation work that informed the choice of build parameters in the additive process, leading to a shorter production development time and lower part failures. The work tested and validated the use of Granta software as a means to apply materials models and analyze their results.

Granta is also a partner in the ongoing project ‘Additive Manufacturing Aiming Towards Zero Waste & Efficient Production of High-Tech Metal Products’ (AMAZE). Led by the European Space Agency, this 30 partner project seeks to rapidly produce large defect-free additively manufactured metallic components up to 2 meters in size for use in aeronautics, space, nuclear fusion, automotive, and tooling. Granta is helping project partners manage the materials, processing, and test information for analysis and simulation, tailored uniquely for additive manufacturing as AMAZE seeks to achieve 50% reduction in power, consumables, raw materials, machining, and cost for finished parts, compared to traditional processing.

Granta’s involvement has fed directly into the on-going development of its leading materials information management software, GRANTA MI™- Version 7. The AMAZE project has supported the enhancement of features that enable widely dispersed collaborators to upload and share complex materials data. It is also validating the capabilities of the system in capturing large volumes of highly complex data from multiple partner organizations and linking these together to make the full body of data securely searchable and analyzable.

Said Dr James Goddin, Collaborative Programme Manager at Granta Design, “We are seeing faster, better results from testing programs. This helps to save time and develop new materials knowledge, it also capitalizes on the extensive data that is already being generated in this area, avoiding duplication of effort and establishing a better understanding of some of the more complex variables.”

Granta Design
www.grantadesign.com