New Life for Metal Products project in brief

In this project we focus on one solution which enables circular economy in large machine parts, repairing with direct energy deposition process. In this process part is repaired layer by layer with welding done by either laser, electron beam or arc. At best, direct energy deposition enables the part to be repaired with a material that is optimized to the part and working environment, in which case the life cycle of the repaired part is many times that of the new part.

In Finland, the use of direct energy deposition has remained low, although there is a real need for it to enable repairing of large and complex parts. There can be found two reason for it, firstly in Finland there is only one company that offers this as a service. Secondly there is limited know how in Finland about directed energy deposition. Because of this, the industry needs more information and support to start using direct deposition in their repair and renovation operations. The industry also needs more operators and service providers.

At the moment, the situation is that for many companies it is safer to manufacture a new component to replace a broken one than to repair or refurbish an old one, when there are not as many service providers and when the technology and its possibilities are unknown. The overall goal of the project is to get Finnish industry and especially the industry of the Southwest Finland to use direct deposition technology for repairing, refurbishing and re-manufacturing of machine parts and thereby companies to adopt the circular economy as part of their business model. Over the years, Finnish industry has invested a lot in welding robotics, which could be put to good use in direct energy deposition process. In Finland, machine shops already have basic equipment that could be used for direct energy deposition and thus the project aims to helps e.g. operators in the welding industry to recognize this business potential in their production and at the same time makes the circular economy part of their business modelThe measures of the project can be summarized in three parts, the first is identifying challenges and solving them by sharing information. The second is the case examples made in cooperation with the industry, which test and verify the functioning of the repair technology in real products and environments. The third is the assessment of environmental impacts and the development of business models, where business models are sought for the industry that encourage companies to adopt the circular economy as part of their business. The results of the project will produce a public information package for companies, on how machines and parts can be repaired, refurbished or remanufactured using modern production techniques.The clear result of the project is that the industry of the Southwest Finland region recognizes the opportunities in repairing parts and components as a part of their business model. At the same time manufacturing companies can starts to offer directed energy deposition as a service for repairing parts. Thus the use of existing resources is enhanced and the use of materials is improved when parts are repaired instead of renewed. At the same time, material waste is reduced when a new part does not have to be manufactured, this in turn reduces the generation of greenhouse gas emissions during. However, above all, the environment benefits from this, as the waste of material and energy decreases with the repair.