Topics

The contents will be defined around the following main topics being the critical areas, which can be seen as separate pillars emphasising together the platform objective:

• Business Implementation
• Design for RM
• RM materials
• RM processes
  

• Business Implementation: Mass production including the resulting mass consumption has shaped our society and, with RM, this way of thinking needs adapting. The total realisation chain will be affected via customer need, data capture, design, design verification, manufacture, logistics, but also education, liability, data ownership and standards.

• Design for RM: Design will change dramatically in the coming years. Lead times are getting shorter the number of variants on products is rising. Therefore, the designer experiences a dramatic reduction of time available while the complexity of the design is rising. The challenges and responsibilities of the individual designer will become bigger and bigger and therefore he has to be supported by for instance automatic design software.

• RM materials: Materials development is the main driving component because materials properties and processing directly influences the later on usability and product features. Production technology will be supplemented by a very wide range of stable materials which properties could be predicted over time by simulation and adapted test procedures. These new materials will have graded characteristics, high performances as well as individual and customised properties.
• RM processes: RM enjoys specific advantages over conventional manufacturing technologies, such as production of complex internal features, insertion of in situ sensors at locations impossible to reach once the part is produced, and minimal design constraints on part geometry. Changes to part geometry are easily affected. In RM, there is no steep cost dependence on geometric complexity, which favours utilization of complex geometry coupled to short production runs.