Scotland’s reputation as a beacon of manufacturing and engineering innovation has been cemented today (21st March) with the launch of the world’s most pioneering, industry scale, fully digitally enabled, forging research platform at the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forning Research Centre (AFRC), part of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS).
The new facility, FutureForge, puts the country at the forefront of modernising and future-proofing the $75 billion global forging sector.
Based in Renfrewshire, FutureForge is a world-unique platform that will see the 100-strong AFRC team of engineers and researchers work directly with the biggest forging companies around in the world, thanks to the facility’s digital and connectivity capabilities.
Professor Brad Wynne, director of the Advanced Forming Research Centre, said:
With the largest hot forging press of its kind, dedicated solely to research and innovation, unparalleled connectivity capabilities, and over a decade of experience in materials science, the Advanced Forming Research Centre is in a unique position to help the forging industry embrace net-zero, unlock energy savings, accelerate productivity and ultimately transform this vitally important industry for future generations.
“The 2,000 tonne press, multiple furnaces, ground-breaking smart manipulator and fully connected, data-driven, control room, that make up FutureForge, provide the sector with the industry-scale test bed it requires to help de-risk investment in innovation around materials, process improvements and energy utilisation.”
Forging is a traditional manufacturing process dating back thousands of years and is vital to nationally important industries such as aerospace, defence, marine and energy.
The multi-million-pound investment has been supported by the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), High Value Manufacturing Catapult and Scottish Enterprise.
Extracted from NMIS website, read more here