Renishaw, a developer of commercial steel AM expertise, has joined the £38 million Digitally Enabled Aggressive & Sustainable Additive Manufacturing (DECSAM) program, a four-year UK aerospace initiative led by Airbus. Operating till June 2028, the venture goals to advance steel laser powder mattress fusion (L-PBF) to make it more cost effective, productive, and sustainable for flight-ready elements. Funded by Innovate UK, the Aerospace Know-how Institute (ATI), and the UK Division for Enterprise and Commerce, DECSAM brings collectively 11 main organizations spanning OEMs, Tier-1 and Tier-2 suppliers, SMEs, and analysis institutes. Individuals embrace Airbus, Renishaw, ASTM Worldwide UK, Authentise, The Manufacturing Know-how Centre, GKN Aerospace, Additive Manufacturing Options, APEX Additive Applied sciences, Domin, the College of Sheffield, and ToffeeX.
The venture focuses on 4 key innovation pillars: efficiency, productiveness, scalability, and utility. It is going to develop new alloys, high-power lasers, beam-shaping strategies, in-situ course of monitoring, and digital manufacturing methods to enhance design effectivity, throughput, and high quality. Deliberate outcomes embrace floor and flight-test demonstrators, recycled powder routes, broader powder specs, validated construct parameters, in-process monitoring software program, and pathways for qualification and certification – all designed to speed up industrial adoption of AM in aerospace.
Renishaw’s function is to boost processing for high-temperature alloys, enhance course of management by simulation and modelling, and prolong powder life to help sustainability. Utilizing its RenAM 500 sequence machines, Renishaw will optimize automation and high quality assurance to scale back non-productive time and labour prices, in the end strengthening the UK’s functionality in steel AM manufacturing.
Whereas L-PBF is already confirmed for flight use, its large-scale adoption stays restricted by productiveness gaps, fragmented knowledge administration, and dependence on abroad suppliers for crucial steps resembling powder manufacturing and warmth therapy. DECSAM addresses these obstacles by connecting UK materials provide chains, machine applied sciences, and digital high quality methods, creating an end-to-end home manufacturing ecosystem. The initiative helps the UK’s net-zero 2050 goal by making aerospace manufacturing cleaner and extra resilient.
Core use instances embrace ultra-efficient wing and engine constructions, conformal warmth exchangers, and fuel-cell manifolds for hydrogen methods. By constructing a completely built-in digital thread and lowering reliance on casting imports, DECSAM goals to ship extra repeatable, certifiable elements at decrease value and shorter lead occasions, strengthening the UK’s aerospace provide chain and positioning it on the forefront of sustainable manufacturing innovation.