The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing will create a sustainable and multidisciplinary body of expertise that will act as a UK and international focus - the 'go to' place for additive manufacturing and its applications. The Centre will undertake a user-defined and user-driven programme of innovative research that underpins Additive Manufacturing as a sustainable and value-adding manufacturing process across multiple industry sectors.Additive Manufacturing (AM) is the direct production of end-use component parts made using additive layer manufacturing technologies. It enables the manufacture of geometrically complex, low to medium volume production components in a range of materials, with little, if any, fixed tooling or manual intervention beyond the initial product design. AM enables a number of value chain configurations, such as personalised component part manufacture but also economic low volume production within high cost base economies. This innovative approach to manufacturing is now being embraced globally across industry sectors from high value aerospace / automotive manufacture to the creative and digital industries. To date AM research has almost exclusively focused upon the production of single material, homogeneous structures (in polymers, metals and ceramics). The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing will move away from single material, 'passive' AM processes and applications that exhibit conventional levels of functionality, toward the challenges of investigating next generation, multi-material active additive manufacturing processes, materials and design systems. This transformative approach is required for the production of the new generation of high-value, multi-functional products demanded by industry. The Centre will initially explore two themes as the centrepieces of a wider research portfolio, supported by a range of platform activities. The first theme takes on the challenge of how to design, integrate and effectively implement multi-material, multi-functional manufacturing systems capable of matching the requirements of industrial end-users for 'ready-assembled' multifunctional devices and structures. Working at the macro level, this will involve the convergence of several approaches to increase embedded value to the product during the manufacturing stage by the direct printing / deposition of electronic / optical tracks potentially on a voxel by voxel basis; the processing and bonding of dissimilar materials that ordinarily require processing at varying temperatures and conditions will be particularly challenging. The second theme will explore the potential for 'scaling down' AM for small, complex components, extending single material AM to the printing of optical / electronic pathways within micro-level products and with a vision to directly print electronics integrally. The platform activities will provide the opportunity to undertake both fundamental and industry driven pilot studies that both feed into and derive from the theme-based research, and grow the capacity and capability of the Centre, creating a truly national UK Centre and Network that maintains the UK at the front of international research and industrial exploitation in Additive Manufacturing.

The Innovative Manufacturing and Construction Research Centre (IMCRC) will undertake a wide variety of work in the Manufacturing, Construction and product design areas. The work will be contained within 5 programmes:1. Transforming Organisations / Providing individuals, organisations, sectors and regions with the dynamic and innovative capability to thrive in a complex and uncertain future2. High Value Assets / Delivering tools, techniques and designs to maximise the through-life value of high capital cost, long life physical assets3. Healthy & Secure Future / Meeting the growing need for products & environments that promote health, safety and security4. Next Generation Technologies / The future materials, processes, production and information systems to deliver products to the customer5. Customised Products / The design and optimisation techniques to deliver customer specific products.Academics within the Loughborough IMCRC have an internationally leading track record in these areas and a history of strong collaborations to gear IMCRC capabilities with the complementary strengths of external groups.Innovative activities are increasingly distributed across the value chain. The impressive scope of the IMCRC helps us mirror this industrial reality, and enhances knowledge transfer. This advantage of the size and diversity of activities within the IMCRC compared with other smaller UK centres gives the Loughborough IMCRC a leading role in this technology and value chain integration area. Loughborough IMCRC as by far the biggest IMRC (in terms of number of academics, researchers and in funding) can take a more holistic approach and has the skills to generate, identify and integrate expertise from elsewhere as required. Therefore, a large proportion of the Centre funding (approximately 50%) will be allocated to Integration projects or Grand Challenges that cover a spectrum of expertise.The Centre covers a wide range of activities from Concept to Creation.The activities of the Centre will take place in collaboration with the world's best researchers in the UK and abroad. The academics within the Centre will be organised into 3 Research Units so that they can be co-ordinated effectively and can cooperate on Programmes.

The aim of the centre is to train research engineers with skills and expertise at the forefront of knowledge in machining science. Machining is at the heart of almost all manufacturing processes, ranging from the milling and turning processes used to create parts for the air-craft engines that power the planes we travel on, through to the grinding processes used to shape replacement hip-joints. As we demand more from engineered components, and move to materials such as composites or high strength alloys, their intrinsic strength or complexity as materials makes them harder to machine. This frequently means that machining processes are slower, require more manual interventions, and produce more out of tolerance parts: all these factors result in higher costs. Research into machining science can make a tangible difference to the way in which modern engineering components are produced. For example, recent machining research by the AMRC will be used at Rolls-Royce's new 20,000 square metre factory in Tyne & Wear. This factory will employ over 400 people and make over 2000 engine components per year, for aircraft including the Boeing 786 Dreamliner and the Airbus A380 [1]. Our doctoral training centre will equip research engineers with the skills and expertise that places them at the forefront of machining science. Cohorts of doctoral researchers will each work on an industrially posed machining problem. They will aim to bridge the gap between industry and academia, as they will first research areas of appropriate machining science, before transferring this technology to their sponsor company. Research and training will take place within a collaborative environment, with research engineers based in the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in Sheffield, where they will be mentored by academics working at the forefront of machining science, and will have access to some of the latest equipment available. Industrial participation is central to our training vision, where in addition to working on an industrially proposed problem, each research engineer will be co- funded and supervised by industry. We see this interaction as essential to ensure the research and training we provide is timely, and addresses the key challenges posed by UK industry. [1] Rolls-Royce press release, Friday, 21 September 2012. "Rolls-Royce breaks ground for new facility in North East"

The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing will create a sustainable and multidisciplinary body of expertise that will act as a UK and international focus - the 'go to' place for additive manufacturing and its applications. The Centre will undertake a user-defined and user-driven programme of innovative research that underpins Additive Manufacturing as a sustainable and value-adding manufacturing process across multiple industry sectors.Additive Manufacturing (AM) is the direct production of end-use component parts made using additive layer manufacturing technologies. It enables the manufacture of geometrically complex, low to medium volume production components in a range of materials, with little, if any, fixed tooling or manual intervention beyond the initial product design. AM enables a number of value chain configurations, such as personalised component part manufacture but also economic low volume production within high cost base economies. This innovative approach to manufacturing is now being embraced globally across industry sectors from high value aerospace / automotive manufacture to the creative and digital industries. To date AM research has almost exclusively focused upon the production of single material, homogeneous structures (in polymers, metals and ceramics). The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing will move away from single material, 'passive' AM processes and applications that exhibit conventional levels of functionality, toward the challenges of investigating next generation, multi-material active additive manufacturing processes, materials and design systems. This transformative approach is required for the production of the new generation of high-value, multi-functional products demanded by industry. The Centre will initially explore two themes as the centrepieces of a wider research portfolio, supported by a range of platform activities. The first theme takes on the challenge of how to design, integrate and effectively implement multi-material, multi-functional manufacturing systems capable of matching the requirements of industrial end-users for 'ready-assembled' multifunctional devices and structures. Working at the macro level, this will involve the convergence of several approaches to increase embedded value to the product during the manufacturing stage by the direct printing / deposition of electronic / optical tracks potentially on a voxel by voxel basis; the processing and bonding of dissimilar materials that ordinarily require processing at varying temperatures and conditions will be particularly challenging. The second theme will explore the potential for 'scaling down' AM for small, complex components, extending single material AM to the printing of optical / electronic pathways within micro-level products and with a vision to directly print electronics integrally. The platform activities will provide the opportunity to undertake both fundamental and industry driven pilot studies that both feed into and derive from the theme-based research, and grow the capacity and capability of the Centre, creating a truly national UK Centre and Network that maintains the UK at the front of international research and industrial exploitation in Additive Manufacturing.

The economics of machining aerospace structural components is fundamentally limited by regenerative chatter and process-damping. Harnessing these two phenomena will lead to enormous productivity gains and superior competitive advantage. For example, a recent project at Sheffield was able to avoid chatter and reduce machining times by a factor of 5, resulting in a multi-million pound contract being awarded to the sponsor. However, current scientific understanding of process-damping is inadequate, so that recent research has resorted to intuition, trial and error, or exhaustive experimental testing. This project aims to overcome these barriers by providing new scientific understanding and engineering tools, and to transfer this technology to the manufacturing community.