• The project will demonstrate strategies and technologies to obtain high-performance steel in metal 3D printing processes, through a process that will integrate additive manufacturing with a custom-made steel alloy.
  • The NewAIMS consortium, coordinated by the Eurecat technology center, has a budget of 2.6 million euros and is made up of five partners from Spain, Poland and Sweden.

The NewAIMS European project, coordinated by the Eurecat technology center, will demonstrate strategies and technologies to profitably obtain high-performance steel through 3D metal printing, with a process that will integrate additive manufacturing with a custom designed steel alloy.

As the project coordinator and researcher at Eurecat’s Metallic and Ceramic Materials Unit, Eduard Garcia, explains, “NewAIMS proposes to combine a well-tailored steel chemical composition and a non-conventional time-temperature process for additive manufacturing. In this way, the aim is to obtain advanced microstructures with better performance than those currently obtained with conventional additive manufacturing and to optimize the performance of the material and the final printed parts”.

On the other hand, “the NewAIMS consortium proposes two high-performance steel grades and a demonstration of printing solutions based on Powder Bed Fusion (PBF), a rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing technique, while linking processes and microstructures to their final performance”, says the director of Eurecat’s Metallic and Ceramic Materials Unit, Montse Vilaseca.

The project, funded by the Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) and with a budget of 2.6 million euros, will implement these solutions in a use case based in tool steels, an essential family of steels used in virtually all manufacturing processes, and where the characteristics of additive manufacturing offer immediate advantages and a transversal implementation.

The NewAIMS consortium, coordinated by the Eurecat technology center, has specific knowledge and experience in different fields and a solid background in R&D. The consortium is formed by CENIM-CSIC, AMAZEMET, Mid Sweden University, INNOMAQ21 and Eurecat.