Type: Active Collaborative Project funded by InnovateUK & The Aerospace Technology Institute

Competition: ATI Batch 21, Capability Investment Programme

Partners: The Manufacturing Technology Centre, Renishaw, Autodesk, ATS, Midlands Aerospace Alliance, NPL, University of Birmingham

DRAMA will establish leading additive manufacturing ‘test bed’ facilities for the aerospace industry and its supply chain at the National Centre for Additive Manufacturing (based at the MTC in Coventry) and the Renishaw AM Solution Centre in Stone. The project will showcase the use of digital technologies to drive productivity and reliability in AM, leading to increased adoption of AM technologies by the aerospace sector and, in the long term, other industrial sectors. It will also deliver the world’s first digitally-twinned reconfigurable AM facility and establish the UK as a global leader in additive manufacturing technology. The project, part of the ATI programme, has received a grant of £11.2 million through the UK’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

Granta Design is providing the platform for the digital infrastructure of the AM facilities, implementing a robust materials information management system, able to capture the relevant information from the entire AM process chain (data and metadata capture from manufacturing machines & testing, powder qualification and use, inspection, material and process modelling). Granta is developing the digital AM knowledgebase repository and software tools for the facilities’ digital twin model.