Additive manufacturing specialist KW Special Projects aka KWSP recently received funding from South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP) to build a new 1,657-square-metre Digital Manufacturing Centre (DMC) at Silverstone Park.
The company’s goal is to transform this DMC into an additive manufacturing hub and innovation centre that will allow businesses to leverage additive manufacturing technologies. KWSP plans to further collaborate with motorsport, automotive and aerospace sectors in this new hub.
New DMC means appropriate equipment
A new centre would not be interesting without appropriate equipment. The DMC will be equipped with a full range of Additive Manufacturing capability, including design, engineering, manufacturing, inspection as well as post processing.
As far as AM systems are concerned, the RPS NEO800 stereolithography system manufactured by British manufacturer RPS Ltd will support the AM services delivered by the company.
With a build envelope of 800 x 800 x 600 (XY&Z), the NEO800 eliminates the need for sectioning joining and bonding by printing large parts. Due to its high scanning resolution, printed parts require less timely hand finishing and post processing.
Furthermore, the SLA system can print parts in PerFORM Reflect, an advanced photopolymer produced by DSM Additive Manufacturing. Bright orange in colour, the material is developed for particle image velocimetry testing, (PIV). PIV is leveraged for measuring lasers to obtain instantons velocity measurements at very high speeds, where traditional wind tunnel measuring techniques cannot be performant.
Therefore, parts printed with the combination of these two capabilities could be used for injection moulding tools, carbon fibre tooling, as well as high speed wind tunnel models to assess flow visualisation.
Kieron Salter, Director of KWSP stated: “The acquisition of the NEO800 machine and Somos DSM PerFORM Reflect together with a large build platform (800 x 800 X 600mm) broadens our additive manufacturing capacity here at KWSP. We are the only external UK supplier of printed parts in Somos DSM PerFORM Reflect and can provide clients a developed material that is perfect for a range of applications including wind tunnel testing with PIV and Composite Tooling. With the launch of the KWSP’s specialist Digital Manufacturing Centre in Autumn 2020 we look forward to bringing this capability together with metallic additive manufacturing processes and of course our existing established FDM to a wide range of customers.”
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