Among the 72 projects submitted to the HORIZON-CL4-2024-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-05 call within the scope of the Horizon Europe Program, the DIAMETER project, in which Sabancı University takes part as the Project Coordinator, has been deemed entitled to support from the European Commission.
The consortium, consisting of a total of 18 partners from various countries in four continents, namely Europe, Asia, America and Australia, will develop a series of digital tools to facilitate the implementation of circularity strategies such as remanufacturing, renewal, repair, and material recycling in additive and machining processes used in the aerospace, automotive, and molding industries, leading to design and process improvement in this project with a total budget of 6 Million Euros.
The project entitled "Demonstration of a sustainable circular-by-design manufacturing system based on additive manufacturing", DIAMETER, in which Sabancı University Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences Faculty Members Assoc. Dr. Taner Tunç and Prof. Dr. Erhan Budak are the principal investigators, will be coordinated by Sabancı University for 4 years. The DIAMETER project aims to facilitate circular economy practices in the metal production sector. For this purpose, digital platforms focused on augmented sustainability and circularity will be developed. These platforms will be used for innovative product lifecycle analysis through process monitoring and simulation tools integrated with machine learning and artificial intelligence. With parallel design and production activities, all results of the project will be used to increase the skills of the new workforce in a much shorter time than usual through DIAdemia, and commercialization will be supported by the DIagonal platform.
The achievements to be obtained in the project will be validated in four industrial use scenarios including (i) manufacturing of catalytic converters, (ii) valves, (iii) aircraft structural parts, and (iv) repair (remanufacturing) of pressing dies. With the DIAMETER project, significant contributions will be made to reducing the carbon footprint of the manufacturing sector, increasing recycling practices, developing a greener Industry 4.0, and encouraging local production. With the DIAMETER project, in which TUSAŞ Havacılık and Coşkunöz Kalıp Makina companies from Turkey also participate, an R&D budget of approximately 1 million Euros will be provided to our country.
Consortium international partners include KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Optik am Fraunhofer IPT (Germany), Fraunhofer IWU (Germany), University of Sheffield - AMRC (England), CARTIF (Spain), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology-Europe (Spain), ModuleWorks (Germany), OC Open Consulting (Italy), Stratagem Energy (South Cyprus), Uni Systems (Greece), F3nice (Italy), Trentino Sviluppo (Italy), ValCUN (Belgium), and Valland SpA (Italy), while Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology-University (Australia) and University of North Carolina at Charlotte (USA) will contribute to the project as associated partners. Thanks to the DIAMETER project, outputs with significant environmental and economic impacts will be obtained within the scope of compliance with the European Green Deal, which is also included in the strategic development goals of our country.
Additional benefits include publications in high-impact journals, training of experienced engineers and scientific researchers in a short time thanks to the DIAdemia platform to be created in the field of additive manufacturing and machining, providing qualified employment, high scientific, technological and social impacts with contributions to the start-up ecosystem and Industry 4.0.