2017 - 2021
The overall aim of DRAMA was to accelerate the uptake of metal powder bed additive manufacturing by the UK aerospace additive supply.
DRAMA has built a new metal powder bed facility at the National Centre for Additive Manufacturing at MTC. In the project the consortium has developed a range of assets to support UK supply chain companies in their adoption of AM. These assets have been road tested during the project and the support will continue to be available after the project. The assets developed are: the Knowledge Hub (an online resource library), a new open access metal powder bed facility and support for supply chain companies to support AM strategy development, to support AM product and process development and to support production implementation. In the project, the team has also road tested a number of our AM training courses.
The new metal powder bed facility at the National Centre is a place where companies can come and learn about the end-to-end additive manufacturing process chain, from design through to verified product. Supply chain companies can access a range of digital tools at the facility to help them rapidly develop their products. Our digital technology partners – Ansys Granta, Autodesk and ATS Global – have developed their digital solutions for design, data management and operations management during the DRAMA project and these can be demonstrated in the facility. We also have access to a wider range of tools – both commercial solutions from our members and tools created by us.
The support packages were trialled with 19 companies in the aerospace or additive manufacturing supply chains. Read more in our Case Studies section.
The MTC was the project lead and coordinated all of the partners, supported by the Aerospace Steering Group.
