Additive manufacture and the assurance challenge

Additive manufacture uses techniques such as laser fusion of metal powders to create optimal design solutions that could not be made other ways. ​

Such components are lighter and stronger than conventional parts, but because of the way they are made the standard methods for assuring their quality cannot be used. This is a particular problem for safety-critical components in industries like nuclear and aerospace.​

The team at Norton Straw has worked to develop developed a risk-based method to assess fatigue lives of additively manufactured materials. Combinbing our expertise in structural integrity, materials and statistics, the method developed has been put through its paces with clients in both the nuclear and aerospace industries.​

In a rapidly expanding field this method remains to be further developed to account for the growing range of material types and manufacturing techniques. However, the initial test applications have been very successful.​

Dr Simon Lewis was recently invited to speak at ICAM2020, the American Society for Testing and Materials.’ International Conference on Additive Manufacturing about this subject. He would be delighted to share more information in this area and discuss how you could get involved in our work involving leading aerospace energy and nuclear organisations.​

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