DurAMat · Sustainable production, processing and modelling of durable additive manufactured materials for enhanced performance and long-term service in complex environments.

The current industrial approach to create metal products is unsustainable. Massive amounts of energy consumption, chemicals, water and the exhaustion of natural metal resources are the hallmark of metal production and processing industries. Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) presents an opportunity to ameliorate metal processing and product manufacturing. While this is a known fact, a full scale industrial implementation of metal AM has been impossible until now due to the lack of consistent AM metal quality.DurAMat is the game-changer that will engender long-lasting performance properties of AM products used in severe exposure environments. DurAMat research will i) develop AM components from different alloy families sustainably ii) enable AM as preferred repair method for defunct metallic products and iii) enable AM for metal functionalisation. DurAMat’s research combines experimental research with multiscale modelling and machine learning (ML) methods.DurAMat fills important knowledge gaps and will innovate AM metals (duplex steel alloys for marine, magnesium for bioresorbable implants) and coatings (biocomposite and AM metal coatings for corrosion and mechanical performance), technologies and services (AM for repair, ML for corrosion inhibitor selection), three computational models (multiscale and ML) and one device (add-on for Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing microstructure control).The DurAMat consortium consists of 6 Universities, 2 Research Centres and 5 Industrial Companies from 6 European Countries. It will train 10 doctoral candidates in a holistic approach, encompassing cross-disciplinary scientific knowledge transfer, teaching activities and cultivating interpersonal and transferable skills.DurAMat’s impact forecasts, among others, a 30% energy reduction in the processing and manufacturing of products, 60% less end-product failures reducing health hazards, eco pollution and casualties, and 20% cost benefit compared to conventional industry approaches.