Direct Metal Object Fabrication - A New Concept for the High Performance Manufacturing of Complex and Customized Parts

With accelerating demands and increasing complexity of new, high value products there is a growing number of applications and requirements where the limitations of conventional manufacturing technology will hamper innovation and development. In response t o this, a new concept of manufacturing based on the successive addition of material (Additive Manufacturing Technology, AMT) has been developing since the last decades of the twentieth century. It is today possible to integrate AMT with conventional manuf acturing processes to create hybrid manufacturing processes. Hybrid manufacturing based on AMT has the potential to combine the design flexibility of AMT with the precision and productivity of conventional manufacturing and thereby create shapes that woul d be extremely difficult to produce through other methods. SINTEF and NTNU have decided to initiate a joint effort on AMT. Establishment of a Geminisenter with a state-of-the-art AMT laboratory is planned for 2008. This will create a unique research comm unity. AMT will then be available for students and Norwegian industry. This is important for preparing students and Norwegian industry for the manufacturing technology of the future. SIP DIMOF together with CRI NORMAN will use the laboratory to introduce AMT and hybrid manufacturing for improvement of industrial processes and products. A next generation AMT system will be developed through MPP. This will make the research community in Trondheim a national, and possibly even a Nordic, center for AMT resear ch on both a fundamental and an industrial level.