NANOTUN3D

NANOTUN3D will take advantage of the possibilities of Additive Manufacturing (AM) together with the development of a specially tailored Ti-based nano-additived material to achieve dramatic improvements in structural parts of aero, space, mobility, and equipment sectors, reaching expected savings between 40% and 50% of material in critical applications. Inherent benefits of AM will be kept (decrease in throughput times, tool-less production, high buy-to-fly-run ratios, etc.).

By adding nanoparticles (NPs) to metal matrixes, the whole life cycle of the NANOTUN3D material has been designed with AM processability in mind: safety and handling issues, processing in well-known AM technologies, post-processing and eventual certification issues are dealt with, and innovative core-shell treatment of the NPs that suits the Ti matrix and produces Ti64-like powder ready to be AM processed. A whole Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) management system will also be developed, as well as all the protocols to start qualification/certification of material and process.

The role of VITO is to implement a HSE management system that will deal with the safety risks associated with the use of NPs along the value stream, and a reliable workflow will be defined of the manufacturing, handling and processing of the Ti-based nano-additived material, from core-shell production to final part.