Babcock and Plastometrex support UK MOD’s Additive Manufacturing push
Babcock International Group, headquartered in London, UK, and Plastometrex, Cambridge, have announced support Project TAMPA, the UK Ministry of Defence’s flagship initiative to accelerate the adoption of Additive Manufacturing in defence.
The programme aims to ensure that armed forces can access vital components when global supply chains are stretched, traditional suppliers are unavailable, or parts have become obsolete. By proving that parts can be manufactured digitally, produced by multiple suppliers, and still meet stringent defence standards, Project TAMPA is working to lay the foundation for a more resilient, secure, and flexible supply chain.
“Project TAMPA is about more than advancing Additive Manufacturing, it’s about national resilience,” stated Dr Mike Coto, CCO at Plastometrex. “The ability to securely share digital designs, manufacture parts where they are needed, and know with confidence that those parts will perform as expected is transformative for defence. PIP enables that confidence, reducing reliance on slow and destructive methods, and ensuring that the MOD can access the parts it needs, when it needs them.”
Babcock, a current Plastometrex customer, will coordinate the manufacture of parts via Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) Additive Manufacturing and oversee the comparison of components produced by different suppliers. The company’s task is to demonstrate that distributed manufacturing can deliver equivalent, certifiable outcomes to those already approved, enabling the Ministry of Defence to maintain operational readiness even when conventional routes are disrupted.
Plastometrex will contribute its Profilometry-based Indentation Plastometry (PIP) technology via the PLX-Benchtop system. PIP is a physics-based approach that extracts stress-strain curves from indentation test data using an inverse finite element method. It is said to offer faster, lower-cost, and improved evaluations of mechanical properties than destructive tensile testing. Unlike tensile testing, PIP can also be performed directly on parts or samples as small as 1.5 x 1.5 x 0.75 mm and at a finer resolution.
Areas that this capability will support the project with include:
- Within-build variation, detecting property changes through the height of an AM build that tensile testing may miss
- Build-to-build variation, reportedly identifying differences between builds more rapidly and affordably
- Equivalency demonstrations, proving alignment with tensile results across a range of alloys produced via PBF-LB Additive Manufacturing
By enabling rapid, non-destructive validation of part performance, PIP reportedly makes it possible to compare and qualify parts at the speed digital supply chains demand, an essential capability for ensuring availability in critical defence programmes. Work on these elements is expected to begin in early November.
Kate Robinson, Managing Director of Through Life Equipment Support (TLES), Babcock, added, “We will develop solutions for complex parts across various platforms to ensure material availability, reduce obsolescence, and enhance the MOD’s defence capabilities. Our collaboration with Plastometrex is a terrific example of how innovation can accelerate the adoption of Additive Manufacturing within the defence supply chain.”
www.babcockinternational.com
www.plastometrex.com
