Lincoln City Council has secured approval to purchase a Rapid Manufacturing Machine in order to establish a facility which is accessible to local businesses as part of a commitment to promote and encourage the growth of engineering and innovation activity in the local economy.

The School of Engineering is fully committed to this initiative, which is part of its engagement process with local industry and a long term close collaborative relationship with the City Council.

Dr Jonathan Lawrence, who is Reader and Head of the  Laser Materials Processing Group in the School, has sourced a machine in China, and will be travelling out to Shanghai in the near future to perform a technical verification before the unit is shipped to Lincoln.

The School will be working closely with the Council to promote the usage of the facility, and will be subsequently working with local businesses to fully utilise it.

The EOS P380 machine uses a high-powered laser, which fuses metal powder into a solid part by melting it locally using the focused laser beam. Parts are built up additively layer by layer. This process allows for highly complex geometries to be created directly from the 3D CAD data, fully automatically, in hours and without any tooling, producing parts with high accuracy and detail resolution, good surface quality and excellent mechanical properties.