SINDRI

The project SINDRI will investigate a new method to reduce raw material waste in the manufacturing industry.

The focus will be on CNC -machining where today between 50 and 80% of the starting material is processed away and then becomes metal shavings. The metal shavings must then be handled, transported and washed in order to be recycled. The market for cutting metal processing was in 2021 at just over 80 billion US dollars globally and is estimated for 2029 to reach up to 140 billion US dollars. With that market size combined with the high rate of wastage, there is a significant opportunity here to make a big difference to resource efficiency and energy consumption to the benefit of our climate. Our project aims to verify a new process for ”Near Net Shaping”, where you produce a raw material that is very close to the final desired shape. This means that the extent of the cut processing can be minimized and the amount of waste as well. There are currently a few alternatives for Near Net Shaping but these in turn bring great challenges in terms of complexity, lack of flexibility and energy consumption, etc. Our method is a combination of a newly developed technique and proven processes that allow a high degree of automation, low threshold for implementation, high control of material properties and high repeatability.

With the patented process from P.A.M.P (called 3D4P from 3D Printing by Precision Powder Pressing) it is possible to build a metal powder body in a green state with any geometry. With a high enough relative density of the green body it is possible to do a Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) without any other pre-process steps necessary. The key is to make the green body gas-tight for the HIP-process which uses gas as a pressure medium for densification of the green body. When the 3D4P process step is finished the green body produced is robust enough to be automatically handled and inserted into Quintus equipment for HIP-treatment. Quintus process is well documented and established on the market and offers the possibility to control the mechanical properties of the produced material with high precision. This entails the producer of a component to optimise its properties for the intended use with high precision and high repeatability.

Based on combining these two technologies our idea will make it possible to create a Near Net Shape component with optimal material properties based on an automated process and at the same time minimise the amount of waste material.

Projektledare
Patrik Härnman, P.A.M.P Nordic Systems AB

Vi som samverkar
→ P.A.M.P Nordic Systems AB
→ RISE
→ Linköpings Universitet (LiU)
→ Quintus Technologies AB