MTC and ASTM International UK join £38M DECSAM project for aerospace AM
The MTC (Manufacturing Technology Centre), Coventry, UK, and ASTM International UK are reported to have joined the Digitally Enabled Competitive and Sustainable Additive Manufacturing (DECSAM) consortium. The £38 million, four-year project aims to accelerate the adoption of Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) in civil aerospace.
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“Additive Manufacturing can unlock new efficiencies in aerospace, lowering costs, optimising material use, reducing weight, and consolidating complex assemblies into single parts,” stated Jacqueline Castle, Chief Technology Officer at the Aerospace Technology Institute. “DECSAM unites a strong consortium to accelerate adoption in civil aerospace, aligning closely with the ATI’s Additive Manufacturing strategy to drive future economic growth and sustainability.”
“As the National Centre for Additive Manufacturing, we’re excited to help improve the cost-competitiveness of the technology so that it can be scaled and adopted more widely across the UK’s aerospace industry,” added Dr David Brackett, Chief Engineer – Digital Engineering, MTC. “This large programme is an opportunity to make a major step forward towards this, and we’re proud to be playing a central role in its delivery and working with excellent partners.”
Led by Airbus, the DECSAM programme will develop and deploy the latest Additive Manufacturing technologies (e.g. beam shaping and in-situ process monitoring) in an effort to make PBF-LB AM more cost-effective, productive and sustainable for flight-ready parts. The project, which runs until June 2028, is a research and innovation project funded by Innovate UK, the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) and the UK Department for Business and Trade.
Beyond Airbus Operations Limited (lead), the project now includes Renishaw plc, ASTM International UK, Authentise, The Manufacturing Technology Centre, GKN Aerospace Services, Additive Manufacturing Solutions, APEX Additive Technologies, Domin, University of Sheffield, and ToffeeX.
DECSAM’s goals
DECSAM aims to cut part cost, raise quality, and shorten design-build-test loops for aerospace applications. The project is structured around four key pillars:
- Performance: new and improved alloys, multi-physics modelling and physics-driven design
- Productivity: high-power lasers, beam shaping, advanced scan strategies, in-situ monitoring and closed-loop control
- Scalability: end-to-end digital thread, automated sustainable factory concepts, and efficient post-processing/inspection
- Application: integration of technologies developed to demonstrate overall cost benefit on target product applications.
Planned outputs include ground and flight-test demonstrators, validated recycled/repurposed powder routes, widened powder specifications, verified parameter themes for quality and throughput, in-process monitoring software, and guidance for routes to qualification and certification, all targeted at accelerating industrial exploitation.
Expected impact
PBF-LB Additive Manufacturing is flight-proven, but uptake is constrained by end-to-end productivity gaps, fragmented data/QA, and reliance on overseas steps (powder, HIP, advanced heat treatment). DECSAM intends to close those gaps by linking UK materials supply, machine capability, in-process quality assurance, a robust digital thread, and factory scale-up, so parts are repeatable, cost-competitive, and producible at volume in the UK, supporting net-zero 2050.
The programme is business-case led: recycled/UK-made powders; optimised build and nesting; in-process monitoring with closed-loop control to reduce or eliminate HIP/CT where feasible; parameter/alloy development to cut finishing time; and cost-modelled demonstrators (e.g., an aircraft floor beam).
Focus use cases include ultra-efficient wing & engine structures, as well as hydrogen subsystems (conformal heat exchangers, fuel-cell manifolds). Alongside performance gains, DECSAM aims to mitigate single-source casting risks, on-shore critical pre-form manufacture, and advance compact Additive Manufacturing-enabled actuation toward power-by-wire.
