Additive Manufacturing
Additive Manufacturing (AM)
About our AM capabilities
WMG is renowned for its extensive research and innovation in the field of Additive Manufacturing (AM). The group collaborates with industry partners to drive research that spans various aspects of AM, including novel materials development, process optimisation, and the integration of 3D printing into existing manufacturing processes. Our interdisciplinary approach combines engineering, materials science, and business expertise to address the challenges and opportunities presented by additive manufacturing, contributing to advancements in industries such as aerospace, automotive, healthcare, and beyond.
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AM is important as it enables, through the layer-wise addition of material, the manufacture of complex high-value products that are impossible to manufacture using traditional methods. AM can also provide reduced product lifetime ownership costs through more efficient products and reduced through-life maintenance. AM also offers sustainability advantages through efficient use of materials and new efficient supply chains.
We also offer unique research degree opportunities in this field.
Focus areas
This is a summary of the key research capability areas within Additive Manufacturing.
Applications development
Working collaboratively with industry to develop AM solutions to real-world problems; working with them to deliver technical solutions to meet their challenges through AM-enabled technology substitution or AM technology integration with traditional technologies to provide technical, economic, social, and environmental advantages.
Materials development
Utilising a wide range of AM technology platforms to develop new materials for high-value applications, across a range of material groupings including polymers, metals, composites, and metamaterials, addressing the demand for greater material performance and functionality.
Supply chain solutions and resilience methods
Research into the disruptive influence that AM can have on supply chains. Developing approaches for maintaining robust and responsive manufacturing systems in the event of unexpected, internal, and external disruptive factors caused by malicious and natural events, and ensuring the integrity of production through threat detection, analysis, and response.
Agile tooling technologies
Developing novel low-cost, rapidly deployable, efficient, and reliable tooling methods and strategies across all production volumes, in particular for low and high-volume injection moulding, including in-process quality monitoring and control approaches for right-first time manufacturing with zero waste.
Success stories
Research that generates impact
Explore the solutions that we create and the impact that we generate in response to societal, industrial, and environmental challenges.