The AMRC is the anchor tenant of the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP), located on the fringe of Sheffield. Also sited here is Sandvik Coromant, a tier one member since the AMRC's inception in 2001. Sandvik Coromant Application Development Specialists such as Jon Clarke spend 100 percent of their time at the AMRC. Moreover, Magnus Ekbäck, the managing director of Sandvik Coromant UK, is a member of the AMRC board, demonstrating further the close partnership between the two organizations.
The main open-plan workshop at AMRC is focused on machining research, housing an array of high specification machining centres and other manufacturing equipment. Here, Sandvik Coromant is able to trial new cutting tool technologies and devise new processes, ultimately to help customers achieve vital competitive gain.
Sandvik Coromant provides essential support to AMRC researchers, who work with individual companies on specific projects. The organization's Process Technology Group (PTG) focuses on producing parts within a machining system in the shortest time possible, without compromising the structural or surface integrity of the component. Focus will include the machine tool, cutting tools, workholding, coolant, software and metrology, ultimately to deliver a fully optimized process. While the work is for specific projects, in most instances Sandvik Coromant retains its own IPR, ensuring subsequent availability to the wider marketplace.
Composites machining forms a core part of AMRC research, involving not just resin and fibre-based materials, but hybrid parts that combine high performance metals and composites in a single structure. Here, the Sandvik Coromant team can test its latest drilling and milling tools, and those manufactured by partner firm Precorp, to deliver new solutions matched to the characteristics of the specific composite material being cut. This work is ongoing in-line with new composite materials as they are introduced to the market.
The research at AMRC is supplemented by projects undertaken at the Sandvik Coromant Composite Application Center in Orléans, France, where two power feed machines are located alongside a five-axis CNC machining center, hand-held machines and a host of associated equipment and metrology devices.