Huddersfield-based Wayland Additive has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with EWI Inc to strengthen collaboration between the two parties. EWI will purchase a Calibur3 system, which will be installed and run at EWI’s Buffalo Manufacturing Works facility in the USA and fully supported by Wayland.

EWI is a well established, independent engineering consultancy with comprehensive labs and advanced manufacturing technology resources dedicated specifically to production process development and improvement.

Trusted across industry and government, the company’s reputation for working with advanced metal additive manufacturing (AM) processes to deliver real engineering solutions is first-class. To this end, in partnership with Wayland, EWI will be looking to leverage the capabilities of Calibur3 and identify new opportunities for metal AM production applications.

Wayland Additive has developed and commercialised the Calibur3 production system, which has been built from the ground up based on the company’s proprietary NeuBeam AM process which is an electron beam (eBeam) powder bed fusion (PBF) that overcomes many of the compromises that most users have to contend with when using metal AM — whether laser or eBeam.

Specifically, the new NeuBeam process neutralises the charge accumulation generated by the electron beam, which thus offers greater flexibility than laser PBF while overcoming the stability issues of traditional eBeam PBF.

Together, EWI and Wayland will work together to identify and fulfil collaborative commercial and government projects based on the strengths of both organisations. They will also work in partnership to further advance the ‘state of the art’ of eBeam PBF.

Stellar reputation
Wayland CEO Will Richardson said: “EWI has a stellar reputation for working with and leveraging advanced technology for industry. Calibur3 opens up many new opportunities for production applications of eBeam metal additive manufacturing because of the unique capabilities of the NeuBeam process.

“EWI quickly understood this and have committed to working with us to develop new commercial opportunities in a number of areas. We are very excited to support EWI and the Buffalo Manufacturing Works team going forward.”

Mark Barfoot, director of AM Programs at EWI, said: “The Wayland technology was identified as part of an Additive Manufacturing Consortium (AMC) project that researched emerging technologies. Calibur3’s ability to 3-D print without solidifying the entire powder cake gives it the potential to produce features that were formerly not suited for eBeam PBF.”

Ron Aman, Senior Technology Leader of AM at EWI, said: “We look forward to working with the innovative team at Wayland Additive to add this unique capability to our suite of metal AM processes.

“Our customers are very interested in leveraging the capabilities of Calibur3 for their applications and EWI is well positioned in the USA and international markets to support the breadth and depth of interest. We look forward to participating in the rapid growth of this new AM process and supporting Wayland along the way with process and material development.”

Peter Hansford, Wayland business development director, concluded: “This is a really exciting time at Wayland. We are seeing real world applications for Calibur3. The development of a completely new metal AM process (NeuBeam) is proving to be valuable out in the industrial world.

“EWI is synonymous with advanced manufacturing and engineering solutions for production with pioneering expertise with eBeam AM through Ron Aman and his team. I can’t wait to see how Calibur3 opens up more new applications in the hands of this very capable team.”