Name: Digital Reconfigurable Additive Manufacturing Facilities for Aerospace – DRAMA

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

Competition: ATI Batch 21, Capability Investment Program

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 program, has received a grant of £11.2 million through the UK’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

Granta Design provides 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.

Name: FormPlanet

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Partners: Fundació Ctm Centre Tecnològic (CTM), Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten Forschung E.V. (FRA) , Lulea Tekniska Universitet (Ltu), Universita’ Di Pisa (Unipi), Comtes Fht As (COM), Fundacio Eurecat (EUT), Letomec Srl (Letomec), Granta Design Ltd (Granta), Asociacion Espanola De Normalizacion (UNE) , Lgai Technological Center Sa (Applus), Arcelormittal Maizieres Research Sa (AMMR), Arania Sa (Arania), Estamp, S.A. (Estamp), Arcelik A.S. (Arcelik), Centro Ricerche Fiat Scpa (CRF), Aludium Transformacion De Productos, S.L.U. (Aludium), Automation, Press And Tooling, A.P.& T. (APT), Lamera Ab (Lamera)

FormPlanet addresses processability and part performance in the sheet metal manufacturing sector. The sector faces new challenges related to the manufacture of high-performance parts with new high strength materials. The aim of FormPlanet is to develop and demonstrate an integrated ecosystem offering novel testing methodologies to characterize sheet properties, predict part performance and prevent production loses to the sheet forming industries to tackle the upcoming challenges in formability of processing sensitive materials. New testing methodologies and FE approaches to predict formability and part performance as well as monitoring and inspecting NDT will be developed and adapted to the sector needs. The project is linked to the European Materials Modelling Council (EMMC) and European Materials Characterization Council (EMCC). Granta is responsible for the implementation of the  Materials and Process information management system (Granta MI), including Workflow implementation for standard protocols for multi-scale modelling and characterization and to support business model for continuation of the Open Innovation Test Bed after project, including reference database exploitation and growth.

Name: IDMBAT - An intelligence battery data management program

Type: Active Collaborative Project funded by InnovateUK

Competition: Faraday Battery Challenge Round 3

Partners: ANSYS Granta, Intellegens, University of Birmingham

This project is developing new tools to speed up the manufacturing processes of batteries, using artificial intelligence to reduce fabrication and development costs while improving key battery metrics. Intellegens’ role is to provide their cutting-edge deep learning predictive models (Alchemite™) for process parameter prediction. ANSYS Granta will build and test the data platform and the University of Birmingham will bring battery technical leadership and will host a small-scale manufacturing facility to generate data. The new intelligent data management platform will enable battery technology manufacturers to overcome technical and commercial barriers.

Name: iTRIBOMAT

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Funding: EU H2020 DT-NMBP-07-2018 

Partners: AC2T Research GMBH (Coordinator), ATOS Spain SA, Bundesanstalt Fuer Materialforschung und Pruefung, Fundacion Tekniker, Granta Design Ltd, Lulea Tekniska Universitet, Moventas Wind OY, Toyota Motor Europe NV, Teknologian Tutkimuskeskus VTT OY, Trygonal Iberia SL

i-TRIBOMAT aims to establish the world first open test bed of tribological materials characterization to support industrial innovations among European manufacturing industries and SMEs by upscaling materials to the mechanical components level. i-TRIBOMAT open test bed enables user-driven versatile characterization of materials at reduced costs by also shortening the time-to-market. i-TRIBOMAT will establish an IT-platform for materials and tribological data harmonization, management, analytics, sharing and mining and will supply lab-to-field upscaling tools by combining testing with computation. Services will be validated by three industrially relevant use cases: energy efficiency (transportation), renewable energy (wind turbine) and manufacturing (seals) represented by large-, medium- and small-sized companies. i-TRIBOMAT will be THE European Single Entry Point offering intelligent Tribological Materials Characterization to predict the durability of materials in use or novel for a wide field of industrial applications. Granta’s role is to provide a materials information management system to support the Open Innovation Test Best.

Name: Mat2Bat - A holistic battery design tool: From materials to packs

Type: Active Collaborative Project funded by InnovateUK

Competition: Faraday Battery Challenge Round 2

Partners: Granta (Lead), Imperial Colege London, Denchi Power

Battery pack designs vary significantly depending on applications and requires careful consideration of the selection of suitable cells as well as materials to make packs such as housings and coolant systems. The increasing diversity of cell chemistries and the already expansive material selection choices for structural components, means that the design space for battery packs is extremely broad. There are several computation tools which aid detailed design of battery packs, however, there are seldom tools which have a holistic view of the battery pack design process from chemistry selection to pack design. The MAT2BAT project will combine Granta's experience of developing material selection design tools with Imperial College London's and Denchi Power's battery knowledge to develop a holistic design tool to explore a growing design space to enable innovative designs. In a time when there is a lack of skilled battery engineers, the MAT2BAT tool will aid in the accelerated development programs of battery packs for both students and non-battery engineers alike to fill the skills gap.

Name: MI-21

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Partners: World Metals Index (WMI), The Welding Institite (TWI), Granta Design

Granta materials database technology supports the MI-21 project. Metals Information for the 21st Century (MI-21) is an information service that brings together, online, key data from the comprehensive knowledge bases of the World Metal Index (WMI) and TWI (The Welding Institute). This combination provides a powerful resource for information on metallic materials and consumables used in the manufacturing industry.

Name: MMPDS Industrial Steering Group

Type: Industry Group

Granta is a member of the Industrial Steering Group of the Metallic Materials Properties Development and Standardization (MMPDS). This project maintains the authoritative source of design allowable data for aerospace components. Granta provides access to this data via our Granta MI software.

Name: Composites Innovation Cluster

Type: Industry Group

Granta participates in the Composites Innovation Cluster, which aims to develop the UK Composites Supply Chain as part of the Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI). It brings together academics, suppliers, technology providers and the National Composites Centre, supporting projects such as DATACOMP.

Name: Light-Join

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Partners: Jaguar Land Rover, Far-UK, Stadco, Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK, Scott Bader Company, Autotech Engineering R&D UK, Granta, TWI, University of Warwick - WMG

The automotive industry faces major challenges to meet targets for emissions, efficiency, performance and cost. Lightweight of parts using composites enables all of these to be addressed, except for cost. A key driver of the cost of composites is the limited ability and capacity in the joining technology available. In project Light-Join, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Nissan and their Tier 1 suppliers aim to develop several solutions that will enable cost effective integration of high-performance composite components into volume car production. Light-Join aims to enable replacement of specific metal vehicle components with composites, specifically focused on developing rapid joining solutions, raising the manufacturing maturity to produce a small-scale demonstrator component (MRL5) and assessing the potential for scale-up to MRL9A. This project will develop a solution leading to 30% weight reduction for all-aluminum construction (for JLR) and 60% compared to an all-steel construction (for Nissan). This approach will have industry-wide applicability, allowing a lower risk introduction of lightweight composite components to the mass market. Granta is providing an enterprise-level materials information database to support the selection of joining methods, along with full traceability from initial trials through to material card generation.

Name: UK-DATACOMP

Type: Completed Collaborative Project

Partners: Altair, Axon Automotive, Cytec Industrial Materials, Granta, Imperial College, NCCEF, Sigmatex

OEMs have invested significantly in shortening their product development processes over the last two decades & virtual prototyping through Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) has been their key enabler. Confidence in using CAE to develop predominantly metallic structures to achieve target performance is high, achieving significant time reductions & cost savings by removing the heavy reliance on physical prototype testing. As products are increasingly developed using composite materials, significant investment is required in order to provide reliable predictive CAE results to meet the equivalent timing & costs as those required to develop a metallic structure. The vision of UK-DATACOMP was to establish a material database to facilitate the use of established virtual prototyping methodologies for composite product development. The database also facilitated validation & quality assurance of composite materials used within the UK supply chain. Granta provided centralized materials information management for the project, capturing high quality, pedigree assured composites data and enabling use of this data for FEA analysis.

Name: COMPOSELECTOR

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Partners: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), Politecnico di Torino, Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon, Granta, University of Trieste, Dow Chemical, Technical University of Prague, ESTECO, Airbus, e-Xstream Engineering, ESI-Group

The mission of COMPOSELECTOR is to develop a business decision support system (BDSS) which integrates materials modeling, business tools and databases into a single workflow to support the complex decision process involved in the selection and design of polymer-matrix composites (PMCs). It will develop an open integration platform which enables interoperability and information management of materials models and data and connects a rich ‘materials modelling layer’ with industry standard business process models. Granta is providing an enterprise-level materials information database to represent the end-users for materials information management (experimental, virtual) which will underpin the BDSS and interact with the modelling platform (MuPIF). Granta will also support business decisions directly with applications for risk management (REACH, cost, environment, etc.) and workflow capability.

Name: Computational Materials Data Network

Type: Industry Group

The Computational Materials Data Network (CMD Network)—founded by ASM International—supports, facilitates and promotes the collection, dissemination and management of materials data. Launched in response to the U.S. Materials Genome Initiative, the network aims to advance materials development and deployment by facilitating information sharing within the materials community.  The CMD Network supports advanced computational materials science and engineering by facilitating the completion of materials-related projects through interactive data sharing and collaboration. To propagate thorough and reliable materials data, the CMD Network conducts Materials Data Management Support Services and Materials Data Demonstration Projects, which dynamically interact with the Materials Data Laboratory™. Granta provides key enabling technology.

Name: CORNET

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Funding: EU H2020 NMBP-07-2017

Partners: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Coordinator), Nanotechnology Lab LTFN, National Physical Laboratory UK, University of Surrey, Organic Electronic Technologies OET, Centro Ricerche Fiat, University of Ioannina, Centre National de la Recerche Scientifique CNRS, Granta, Fluxim, Hellenic Organic and Printed Electronics Association HOPE-A, AIXTRON

CORNET is an ambitious project submitted to the H2020 Call NMBP-07-2017, that will develop a unique EU Open Innovation Environment (OIE) covering the triangle of manufacturing, modeling and experimentation in order to optimize the Organic/Large Area Electronic (OE) materials, materials' behavior and nano-devices (OPVs, PPVs, OLEDs) manufacturing processes. This will be achieved by linking the nanostructure features with the macroscopic functionality through multiscale (nano to macro) characterization and modeling. This will strongly impact the fast and reliable development of new materials, devices and will enable control of the related production processes (R2R printing and gas transport (OVPD)) to fabricate tailored OE devices and systems to demonstrate to industrial applications (e.g. automotive, greenhouses). Granta’s role is to provide a materials information database system for the OIE.

Name: EMMC-CSA

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Partners: TU Wien, Fraunhofer, Goldbeck Consulting, Politecnico di Torino, Uppsala University, DOW, EPFL, Sintef, Dutch Polymer Institute, Access e.V., Helmholtz-Zentrum, Materials Design Sarl, QuantumWise A/S, University of York

The European Materials Modelling Council Coordination and Support Action (EMMC-CSA) will develop a common understanding of the requirements of materials modelling within Europe. It will organize workshops to collect and compile input from stakeholders to set a common direction in areas including model development, interoperability and metadata, best practices for business decision support tools and articulating economic and business impacts.

Name: FORCE

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Partners: DOW, Unilever, Megara Resins, IBM, Fraunhofer, Enthought, Enginsoft, Uni. Patras, ETH Zurich

The project aims to develop a software and data framework to enable non-expert users to access materials simulation to support business decision making. Consultants, or ‘translators’, will help map end-user product requirements to the appropriate models. Guidance for how to undertake this translation is an expected outcome. The project focuses on three industrial end-user cases by means of demonstration case study materials. The project is linked to the European Materials Modelling Council (EMMC). Granta will provide project data management to the project, based on the Granta MI materials information management system and provide guidance on data transfer between the systems in some key workflows.

Name: IDMBAT - An intelligence battery data management program

Type: Active Collaborative Project funded by InnovateUK

Competition: Faraday Battery Challenge Round 3

Partners: ANSYS Granta, Intellegens, University of Birmingham

This project is developing new tools to speed up the manufacturing processes of batteries, using artificial intelligence to reduce fabrication and development costs while improving key battery metrics. Intellegens’ role is to provide their cutting-edge deep learning predictive models (Alchemite™) for process parameter prediction. ANSYS Granta will build and test the data platform and the University of Birmingham will bring battery technical leadership and will host a small-scale manufacturing facility to generate data. The new intelligent data management platform will enable battery technology manufacturers to overcome technical and commercial barriers.

Name: iTRIBOMAT

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Funding: EU H2020 DT-NMBP-07-2018 

Partners: AC2T Research GMBH (Coordinator), ATOS Spain SA, Bundesanstalt Fuer Materialforschung und Pruefung, Fundacion Tekniker, Granta Design Ltd, Lulea Tekniska Universitet, Moventas Wind OY, Toyota Motor Europe NV, Teknologian Tutkimuskeskus VTT OY, Trygonal Iberia SL

i-TRIBOMAT aims to establish the world first open test bed of tribological materials characterization to support industrial innovations among European manufacturing industries and SMEs by upscaling materials to the mechanical components level. i-TRIBOMAT open test bed enables user-driven versatile characterization of materials at reduced costs by also shortening the time-to-market. i-TRIBOMAT will establish an IT-platform for materials and tribological data harmonization, management, analytics, sharing and mining and will supply lab-to-field upscaling tools by combining testing with computation. Services will be validated by three industrially relevant use cases: energy efficiency (transportation), renewable energy (wind turbine) and manufacturing (seals) represented by large-, medium- and small-sized companies. i-TRIBOMAT will be THE European Single Entry Point offering intelligent Tribological Materials Characterization to predict the durability of materials in use or novel for a wide field of industrial applications. Granta’s role is to provide a materials information management system to support the Open Innovation Test Best.

Name: Light-Join

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Partners: Jaguar Land Rover, Far-UK, Stadco, Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK, Scott Bader Company, Autotech Engineering R&D UK, Granta, TWI, University of Warwick - WMG

The automotive industry faces major challenges to meet targets for emissions, efficiency, performance and cost. Lightweight of parts using composites enables all of these to be addressed, except for cost. A key driver of the cost of composites is the limited ability and capacity in the joining technology available. In project Light-Join, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Nissan and their Tier 1 suppliers aim to develop several solutions that will enable cost effective integration of high-performance composite components into volume car production. Light-Join aims to enable replacement of specific metal vehicle components with composites, specifically focused on developing rapid joining solutions, raising the manufacturing maturity to produce a small-scale demonstrator component (MRL5) and assessing the potential for scale-up to MRL9A. This project will develop a solution leading to 30% weight reduction for all-aluminum construction (for JLR) and 60% compared to an all-steel construction (for Nissan). This approach will have industry-wide applicability, allowing a lower risk introduction of lightweight composite components to the mass market. Granta is providing an enterprise-level materials information database to support the selection of joining methods, along with full traceability from initial trials through to material card generation.

Name: MarketPlace

Type: Active Collaborative Project

Funding: EU H2020 NMBP-25-2017

Partners: Fraunhofer IWM (Coordinator), Access e.V., Robert BOSCH GMBH, Crystalso OU, DSC Computing GMBH, Enthought Ltd., Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Goldbeck Consulting Ltd., Granta Design Ltd., Haute Ecole Specialisee de Suisse Occidentale, Johnson Matthey PLC, L’Urederra, MBN Nanomaterialia SPA, MTU Aero Engines AG, Norge Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet NTNU, Stiftelsen SINTEF, University College London, Sintef Ocean AS

The MarketPlace consortium will use state-of-the-art information technologies to build an open web-based integrated Materials Modeling and Collaboration platform that acts as one-stop-shop and open Marketplace for providing all of the determining components that need to be interwoven for successful and accelerated deployment of materials modeling in industry. This includes linking various activities and databases on models, information on simulation tools, communities, expertise exchange, course and training materials, lectures, seminars and tutorials. The proposed MarketPlace will be a central-hub for all materials modeling related activities in Europe and provide tangible tools to connect disparate modeling, translators and manufacturing communities to provide a vibrant collaboration web-based tool for the advancement of materials modeling in European manufacturing industry. Granta’s main role is to support platform development and access to materials data/information repositories.

Name: Mat2Bat - A holistic battery design tool: From materials to packs

Type: Active Collaborative Project funded by InnovateUK

Competition: Faraday Battery Challenge Round 2

Partners: Granta (Lead), Imperial Colege London, Denchi Power

Battery pack designs vary significantly depending on applications and requires careful consideration of the selection of suitable cells as well as materials to make packs such as housings and coolant systems. The increasing diversity of cell chemistries and the already expansive material selection choices for structural components, means that the design space for battery packs is extremely broad. There are several computation tools which aid detailed design of battery packs, however, there are seldom tools which have a holistic view of the battery pack design process from chemistry selection to pack design. The MAT2BAT project will combine Granta's experience of developing material selection design tools with Imperial College London's and Denchi Power's battery knowledge to develop a holistic design tool to explore a growing design space to enable innovative designs. In a time when there is a lack of skilled battery engineers, the MAT2BAT tool will aid in the accelerated development programs of battery packs for both students and non-battery engineers alike to fill the skills gap.

Name: ADS Design for Environment Group

Type: Industry Group

ADS is the premier trade organization advancing the UK Aerospace, Defense, Security and Space industries. Its Environment Group was set up to develop standards for the industry to ensure the deployment of eco-design in the ADS supply chain (methodology and metrics) and anticipate eco-design and product sustainability related risks presented to the ADS sectors. Granta has an active role in this industry group, providing expertise on materials information management as well as the assessment of life cycle impacts and risks associated with restricted substances, critical materials and conflict minerals. Granta co-founded an Engineering Doctorate student at the University of Surrey to work on standardized environmental indicators.

Name: ASTM E60

Type: Industry Group

Granta participates in the ASTM Committee E60 on Sustainability, which is developing Standards that will play a preeminent role in all aspects of sustainability and sustainable development.

Name: CE100

Type: Industry Group

Granta is a member of the Circular Economy 100 (CE100) program. This group of leading companies, universities and emerging innovators, coordinated by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, is developing new approaches and tools that can lead the transition to a ‘circular economy’. A circular economy is one that is: restorative by intention: aims to rely on renewable energy; minimizes that use of toxic chemicals; and eradicates waste through careful design. Decisions about materials are central to realizing this vision. Our work has included: a project to develop a new metric for product circularity; making tools for reporting on product risk and resource efficiency available to members; and involvement in the ResCom project.

Name: EcoBulk

Ecobulk is a large-scale European initiative which will demonstrate that re-using, upgrading, refurbishing and recycling composite products is possible, profitable, sustainable and appealing for the automotive, construction and furniture sectors. The project aims to establish a new design framework that will target new materials and design concepts to enhance circularity, refine and produce new circular materials at TRL7 and produce demonstration products for each target sector which can be (re)manufactured with over 80% recycled material. Ecobulk is a consortium of 29 companies representing manufacturers, designers, research institutions and industry associations. Granta:MI is used to support traceability of EcoBulk materials and processes data and information and to support selection for material and product for a circular economy.  

Name: IOM3 Sustainable Development

Type: Industry Group

The Sustainable Development Group (SDG) is the center of expertise on Sustainability and the Environment in IOM3 (the UK's Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining). Its roles include the promotion of whole life-cycle thinking across the professional interests of the members of IOM3 and it provides a body of expertise to respond to requests to the Institute for opinions on sustainable development and the environment. Granta provides expert input to this group to assist in coordinating relevant events and communities in the area of sustainable development in its broadest context, drawing upon relevant expertise in eco-design, restricted substances and critical materials.

Name: KTP Built Environment & Construction Industries Project

Type: Active Collaborative Project

The goal of this project is to develop a tool for the Built Environment and Construction sectors with a focus on cost, environmental and performance metrics to allow resource efficient selection of materials and components in design practice. This project is part of the Knowledge Transfer Program and the Knowledge Transfer Partner is the University of Cambridge, Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering Division.

Name: ADS Design for Environment Group

Type: Industry Group

ADS is the premier trade organization advancing the UK Aerospace, Defense, Security and Space industries. Its Environment Group was set up to develop standards for the industry to ensure the deployment of eco-design in the ADS supply chain (methodology and metrics) and anticipate eco-design and product sustainability related risks presented to the ADS sectors. Granta has an active role in this industry group, providing expertise on materials information management as well as the assessment of life cycle impacts and risks associated with restricted substances, critical materials and conflict minerals. Granta co-founded an Engineering Doctorate student at the University of Surrey to work on standardized environmental indicators.

Name: ADS HazMat Group

Type: Industry Group

ADS is the premier trade organization advancing the UK Aerospace, Defense, Security and Space industries. The ADS HazMat Working Group was originally set up to manage the issues surrounding the REACH chemicals directive. The remit of this group has now expanded to include other HazMat legislation. Granta has an active role in this industry group, providing expertise on materials information management as well as the assessment of risks associated with restricted substances.

Name: ERECON: European Rare Earth Competency Network

Type: Industry Group

The European Rare Earths Competency Network brings together experts to look at ways of addressing the issue of supply security. ERECON is guided by a Steering Committee that sets the agenda of the Working Group meetings of rare earth experts. Each Working Group has a different mandate: the first focuses on the primary production of rare earths in the EU, the second looks at resource efficiency and recycling and the third on trends and challenges. Granta contributed to the technical delivery of working group III, representing the combined industry trends and demands observed during other collaborations and from groups such as the ADS Design for Environment working group to ensure that these views were adequately represented during the development of the Strategic Implementation Plan.

Name: European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials

Type: Industry Group

The EIP on Raw Materials brings together EU Member States and other key stakeholders (such as European companies, European researchers and European NGOs) to promote innovation along the entire value chain of raw materials. It does this by supporting technologies, improving the framework policy conditions for raw materials and by promoting international cooperation. Granta contributed to the technical delivery of the Strategic Implementation Plan adopted by the High Level Steering group on Sep. 25, 2013, which fed into the Work Program for the 2014 and 2015 calls for Horizon 2020.

Name: IAEG - International Aerospace Environmental Group

Type: Industry Group

IAEG™ is a non-profit corporation comprised of a global group of aerospace companies, established to facilitate harmonization of compliance amongst Aerospace Companies and their supply chains with the existing and emerging laws and regulations protecting human health and the environment. The group focuses on issues such as chemical material declarations and reporting requirements, greenhouse gas reporting and management and approaches for implementation of environmental requirements.

Name: PLEIADES

Partners: Rolls-Royce (Topic Manager), Granta, thinkstep, University of Stuttgart, University of Surrey

PLEIADES is a collaborative project within Clean Sky 2, the European program to enable environmental improvements in next generation aircraft. It aims to develop industry-focused eco-design tools that support real aerospace engineering workflows and support development teams in taking a combined view of engineering, environmental, sustainability and business considerations. The project will integrate and ensure effective use of both primary and secondary data on materials, processes and products. It also aims to remove the barriers to cost-effective use of life cycle assessment approaches in product development. The project builds on the work completed in the Samulet project. Granta is coordinating this project.