The Fives Michelin Additive Solutions joint venture (JV) has launched SOFIA (Solutions pour la fabrication industrielle additive métallique/Solutions for Industrial Metal Additive Manufacturing), an applied research program for metal additive manufacturing.
SOFIA's aim is to contribute to the development of this technology by working on the entire metal additive manufacturing value chain (powders, production equipment, processes).
The €50 million, six-year applied research program will focus on 4 key areas:
- Perfecting metal powder ranges
- Improving the productivity of additive manufacturing machines by optimizing the material/process pairs and developing new energy sources
- Designing new ranges for parts with optimized technical and economic characteristics, with a view towards digital continuity
- More broadly, increasing the knowledge of the HSE (health – safety – environment) risks linked to metal additive manufacturing in order to create a repository.
Partners include Aubert & Duval, ESI Group, FusiA, Michelin, Safran, Volum-e, Zodiac Aerospace, Centrale Supelec, Centrale Nantes, Ecole Polytechnique, ENS Paris-Saclay (ENS Cachan), University Paris Diderot, University of Paris-Sud, Pierre and Marie Curie University – Paris VI.
This story is reprinted from material from Michelin, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
