30<< AERONAUTICS Project Partners The Nanotund3D consortium gathers expertise from 9 partners from Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain, including Aidimme, the Technological Institute for metal processes, wood and furniture, being the research coordinator. • Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) • Laurentia Technologies SLL • Vlaamse Instelling Voor Technologisch Onderzoek N.V. (Vito) • TLS Technik GMBH & CO. Spezialpulver KG (TLS Technik) • Zoz GMBH (ZOZ) • Asociación Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Técnicas (IK4-Ceit) • TWI Limited • APR SRL • Metal-Processing, Furniture, Wood and Packaging Technology Institute (Aidimme). Co-ordinator. Quali cation: it is a should The project has assumed the challenge of providing the aerospace sec- tor with solutions which fall under the strict compliance of the Safety Management System (SMS) of services and products for aircraft. But transferability to the aerospace sector needs the quali cation of the new material and manufacturing process, in terms of verifying that the results obtained ful ll the applicable standards over time and in different batches. Nanotund3D devotes a complete set of tasks to the aforementioned quali cation, paving the way for the manufacturers of aeronautical components to the certi cation of the AM parts using the new material. Additive Bene ts A special material for additive manufacturing also brings direct advan- tages, since the many inherent AM bene ts can be additionally applied: the design and manufacture of complex geometries; manufacturing on demand; time to market reduction; absence of production tools, cost savings due to material reduction; simpli cation of the supply chain and even the manufacture of spare parts and repair of damaged ones. This way, Nanotund3D can be a good addition to other sectors such as automotive, machinery, dental etc. In the ‘core’ of the project The ef cient dispersion of the Silicon Carbide (SiC) nano-particles is the cornerstone of the breakthrough mechanical improvement of the basic Ti6Al4V alloy. In order to guarantee an adequate dispersion of the particles and controlling chemical reactions in the Ti-based alloys, the proposed strategy relies on using ‘core-shell’ particles thus providing ‘temporary or transient’ protection of the SiC nanoparticles in contact with the metallic alloy at high temperatures, from the development of the metallic powder up to the AM processing of such Nanotund3D powder. During the rst year of project IDM (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia) team has developed a synthesis route for the preparation of core-shell SiC nanoparticles with different metal oxides as shells. The synthesis for Nanotund3D core-shell nanoparticles was based on the direct formation of metal oxides on top of SiC nanoparticles by acidic hydrolisis of precursors. From the results shown in image 2 and image 3 it can be seen that the used SiC material corresponds with the desired phase, b-SiC phase, formed by nanoparticles in the range from 20 to 70 nm, with an average size around 42 nm. Image 2. X-ray diffraction diagram of the SiC used to act as core in the synthesis of the core-shell nanoparticles.