Additive Manufacturing Austria (AM Austria)

AM Austria sees itself as a technology platform for supporting and networking the Austrian additive manufacturing scene.

Additive manufacturing is an automated process for producing scale, three-dimensional, physical objects directly from a 3D CAD dataset. The process is based on the layer construction principle and does not require component-dependent tools. AM Austria was founded by people who have been active in the additive manufacturing industry for many years.

The technology platform officially started its activities on 23 February 2018 in the form of a founding convention at the BMVIT in Vienna and has already gained 60 organisations as members in its first year of existence.

AM Austria's main activities include:

• development of strategies to strengthen research and industry in the field of additive manufacturing,
• promoting systematic networking and collaboration between relevant stakeholders through the organisation of six working groups, workshops and events, as well as
• increasing visibility of Austrian additive manufacturing competences at home and abroad through targeted media work and positioning among opinion leaders, multipliers and well-known industry events.

The six working groups set up are:

• Education and training
• Strengthening industry
• Standards and standards
• Definition of research topics
• Research: Facts and figures, profiles and showcases
• Strategy: Positioning and internationalization

The goal of AM Austria is to make Austria one of the world's most innovative pioneers in the field of additive manufacturing in order to raise the enormous potential of this technology for our economy.

To this end, efforts are being made to strengthen and disseminate additive manufacturing across the entire interdisciplinary value chain, involving all key stakeholders and interfaces for effective activities at national and international level.

AM Austria relies heavily on the area of internationalization and knowledge exchange with international experts.

The technology platform plans

• to be present at international trade fairs,
• to establish relations with similar associations abroad,
• to invite international experts to Austria in order to strengthen the influx of know-how from abroad and also to further expand the international membership.

Interdisciplinary collaboration

AM Austria offers an overarching platform for the merger and professional exchange of all companies, universities and research institutions involved in the value chain of additive manufacturing in Austria. The focus is on joint work on the further implementation of additive manufacturing in the industry.

Network development and know-how transfer

In order to support research activities and projects at national and international level, AM Austria establishes contacts with member companies and accompanies the strategic development and technical orientation as a representation of interests in various committees. implementation of additive manufacturing technologies.

In connection with this, networking events as well as international top experts are invited to Austria for specialist lectures and strategy development projects such as addmanu or the Roadmap Additive Manufacturing Austria, Supports.

Public relations

In addition, AM Austria provides its members, the public and key decision-makers with information on current developments and key decision-makers on trade fair appearances, media partnerships, its own website and regular newsletters. communicates potentials as well as progress in these areas.

addmanu

addmanu is a national R&D project for the development of additive manufacturing in Austria, from which the original idea for the foundation of the technology platform AM Austria originated.
For additive manufacturing, four production technologies - lithography-based manufacturing (LBF), fused filament fabrication (FFF), selective laser melting (SLM) and inkjet printing - were defined as part of this project, and subsequently research and printing were subsequently developed. Development work carried out for the further development of the above-mentioned processes, equipment, materials and selected use cases.

The addmanu project was funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency with €3.8 million from 2015 to 2018. More than 25 institutions participated in the project.

Research results from the project are used as a knowledge transfer measure in the national training project "Qualification Network addmanu knowledge", which is supported by the FFG and the Federal Ministry for Digitization and Business Location (BMDW). Is.

Roadmap Additive Manufacturing Austria

In the course of 2018, intensive work was carried out on the strategy project "Roadmap Additive Manufacturing Austria", the aim of which was to develop a comprehensive and inter-institutional Austrian roadmap on the topic of "Additive Manufacturing in Austria". to develop.

The roadmap was commissioned by the BMVIT and jointly implemented by the Montanuniversität Leoben, ASMET and AIT with the participation of AM Austria and our members as well as the plastics cluster NÖ ecoplus.

The "Roadmap Additive Manufacturing Austria" was published in 2019 and forms the basis for the further development of the technology location Austria in the field of additive manufacturing.

The members of AM Austria show what is already possible in additive manufacturing
Austria has a great deal of expertise in additive manufacturing and can therefore offer a very wide range of services that cover almost all material systems (plastic, metal and ceramics) and technologies, as well as upstream and downstream processes, such as simulation, design, post-processing and quality assurance.

For example, FOTEC GmbH, in cooperation with french partners Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence & Space, has optimised an actuator mount for solar panels, which is used on satellite constellations as part of the NEOSAT platform.

The project, commissioned and financed by the European Space Agency (ESA), simplified component design, i.e. the conventional assembly (five components) was built monolithically and simulation-based topology optimization was carried out. A weight reduction of 20% with constant mechanical properties was achieved and a further project was started with the aim of being ready for the market of the process chain.

The potential is already considerable, but there is no need to make all of this visible. AM Austria is therefore currently working the creation of a first competence map to show what our members have to offer in the field of additive manufacturing.