Rivelin Robotics Leads Project CAMPFIRE to Develop Automated Postprocessing Solutions for Regulated Industries

Rivelin Robotics is the lead partner in Project CAMPFIRE (Certified Additive Manufactured Parts Finished with Intelligent Robotics Engine) to create a complete digital postprocessing solution for the automated finishing of parts. The project is being funded by Innovate UK and focuses on automated finishing of flight parts, orthopedic implants and gas turbine components produced using metal additive manufacturing (AM) processes.

Rivelin is collaborating with five partners. Three companies are specific to postprocessing applications for regulated industries using metal AM, namely Attenborough Medical, GKN Aerospace and Materials Solutions (a Siemens Energy Business). The two other partner companies are supporting with the delivery of key hardware technologies, namely YASKAWA EU and Saint-Gobain Abrasives.

The project aims to address operational considerations such as repeatability, quality control, long lead times and high costs. Rivelin says these considerations are fundamental, as well as critical, for regulated industries that have to adhere to stringent standards of compliance.

Since it was founded in 2018, the Rivelin team has developed and commercialized its Netshape Robots postprocessing solution, which can provide autonomous postprocessing capabilities. Rivelin’s Netshape software also plays an essential role in delivering a complete solution.

Project CAMPFIRE is providing a collaborative way for companies from three different regulated industries to test and implement the NetShape robots for their own applications. Attenborough, GKN and Materials Solutions are all companies that have been dealing with the challenges of postprocessing end-use metal AM parts in their respective industries. While the parts and the application of them are very different in specification, Rivelin says there are many factors that unite these companies, not least their frustrations with the traditional options available to them for postprocessing their parts.

“While we have been delivering and installing Netshape Robots to key customers since last year, this project is a brilliant way to demonstrate the capabilities of Netshape across industries and applications,” says Robert Bush, Rivelin Robotics CEO. “Users of metal AM for production are unanimous in their demand for an automated solution for support removal and finishing. Regardless of the parts and how or where they will be used, the shared pain in getting those parts from the AM machine to the point of use is prevalent and engenders collaboration to solve the issues. This is exactly what Project CAMPFIRE aims to do.”

GKN Aerospace

GKN Aerospace is a Tier 1 supplier to aerospace industries and has been working in metal AM for over a decade to develop and use the technology on both civil and military aerospace programs. Its current focus is to utilize its additive fabrication technology to offer reliable and sustainable ready-to-use alternatives to castings and forgings within its engine business.

Through the CAMPFIRE program, GKN Aerospace is collaborating with Rivelin Robotics to explore the use of robotic systems to automate the process of removing support material from complex aerospace products. “The Rivelin technology offers many attractive features to aerospace end users: the opportunity to remove human interactions, improve repeatability and productivity,” says Brad Hughes, principal research engineer - Additive Manufacturing at GKN Aerospace

Material Solutions

At Materials Solutions (a Siemens Energy business), the company has been utilizing metal AM in the UK and globally for over a decade, to empower customers to meet the growing global demand for energy while transitioning to a more sustainable world. It has a print process that is very much standardized, certified and optimized, whereby the focus has shifted to streamlining and digitizing its wider manufacturing operations, which includes the postprocessing of parts as a priority.

“The current support removal method that we employ involves a complex process chain utilizing EDM to remove the bulk of the support from the leading edge followed by manual support removal using pneumatic tools and manual surface dressing,” says Trevor Illston, chief manufacturing engineer at Materials Solutions. “A rework loop is often required to ensure that the surface profile tolerance and surface quality required is achieved for the final components. This is both time-consuming and not particularly efficient. It has long been the major bottleneck in the overall AM process. The target of our involvement in Project CAMPFIRE is to utilize the Rivelin Netshape Robot to reduce the number of operations in the process chain and demonstrate an improvement in the vane leading edge quality to routinely meet the requirements without any additional rework on the surface to increase productivity.”

Attenborough Dental and Medical

Attenborough Medical offers capabilities in 3D medical imaging, scanning and custom implant design and manufacture with ISO13485:2016, ISO9001:2015, DAMAS and IIP Accredition. Part of the same group, Attenborough Dental is a manufacturer of bespoke biomedical implants and is registered with The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

The company also faces issues with the postprocessing of metal parts. “The postprocessing phase of metal AM implants is a major bottleneck in our overall process,” says Ed Attenborough, Attenborough Dental and Medical CEO. “As our business has grown and volumes continue to increase, finding a solution to overcoming this bottleneck is imperative. Apart from the time it takes for each part with increasing volumes, other challenges include the fact that different medical implant sizes can vary and the parts themselves tend to be small, delicate and fragile. It is not uncommon for parts to break during support removal or warp due to external forces applied to the part during the manual removal process.”

The bottleneck affects the company’s overall productivity and consistency, which the company is looking to resolve. “Being part of Project CAMPFIRE is a no-brainer and potentially a game-changer for us,” Attenborough says. “We are working collaboratively within this project because we need a full digital postprocessing solution.”

Yaskawa EU

As an industrial drives and robot arm manufacturer Yaskawa EU is a key partner for Rivelin that can also bring system integration capabilities to the collaboration. Through its European robotic manufacturing and system solution capabilities, Yaskawa is delivering robot and positioner cell solutions directly to Rivelin. This enables Rivelin to focus on the integration and implementation of its state-of-the-art sensors and processes to bring dexterity, versatility and ease of operation as a complete customer-focused solution for its customers.

“Through Rivelin, we see the potential for robotic postprocessing of AM parts to be increasingly adopted across many industries, even those that are highly regulated,” says Jonny Grey, sales director at Yaskawa UK. “Yaskawa has the robotic products and manufacturing capabilities needed to support these solutions as demonstrated by the cross-collaboration of Project CAMPFIRE.”

Saint Gobain Abrasives

Saint-Gobain has more than 100 years of experience as a global provider of grinding technology and tool solutions, including the manual finishing of metal parts. Now, however, the company is fully aware of the transition to automation and the commercial potential that it offers.

“Automation is absolutely the key for postprocessing. We have several customers worldwide working in the field of turbine blades processing, and traditionally all of those have been finished manually,” says Gabriele De Blasio, robotics manager for abrasive applications EMEA. “That’s changing now and we are excited to be involved in this project as we witness the transition to fully automated postprocessing.”