MiAMI project – The Technology Transfer of the Year

The award for "Årets Överlämning" (Technology Transfer of the Year), was presented to participants in the MiAMI project – Material design for additive manufacturing of industrial tools – at the programme conference for Metalliska material (Metallic Materials).

"I wish to thank all of the project participants for their great commitment. Their efforts have been the foundation of a successful project," commented coordinator Annika Strondl, Swerim.

The use of computation tools as the basis of a method for developing new materials that are suitable for additive manufacturing (AM) has shown good results. Four new materials have been developed during the project, three of which have been tested in various tooling applications and compared with reference materials.

MiAMI, which started in 2018, has succeeded in realizing the ambition of developing methods for more rapid development of customized AM materials with optimized properties for specific applications. This means that the number of available AM alloys will probably increase and that the life expectancy of the applications will be extended by 20–30 percent, and that the cost will decrease in equal measure (20–30 percent), thanks to improved material performance. In addition, the time to market for new products has been shortened.

The entire value chain

The project has had eight active partners, together representing the entire value chain from materials manufacturers to end users and involving a metals research institute and a university. Specialists in alloy design at Swerim, KTH and Sandvik Additive Manufacturing have worked in close collaboration with product end users LKAB Wassara, Trelleborg Sealing Solutions, Sandvik Coromant and Mora Tool to meet well-defined requirements for material properties in the various applications, which has enabled a fantastic exchange of knowledge and experience.

The project has had a total budget of 12.1 million kronor, of which 5.8 million kronor is funding from Vinnova. Jernkontoret has also supported the project.

Picture: Visit at Sandvik Additive Manufacturing 2019. From the left: Peter Harlin (Chairman of the project) och Faraz Deirmina, Sandvik Additive Manufacturing, Torbjörn Borgert, Mora Tool, Harald Kissel, Mikael Schuisky och Ville Matilainen, Sandvik Additive Manufacturing, Durga Ananthanarayanan, KTH, Hans Magnusson och Annika Strondl, Swerim, Niklas Holländer Pettersson och Greta Lindwall, KTH, Maria Bengtsson, LKAB Wassara, Bonnie Hagen, Swerim,  Simon Lövquist, Sandvik Coromant.

The Metalliska Material programme is part of a joint strategic-innovation initiative by Vinnova, the Swedish Energy Agency and Formas, bringing together Sweden's metals industries: steel, aluminium, hard steel alloys, casting steel, cast iron and nonferrous metal casting.