16th Annual International RAPDASA Conference

Nearing the end of the year, the 16^th international RAPDASA conference was held at the Faircity Roodevallei Conferencing and Meeting Hotel between the 4^th and 6^th November. A pre-conference Seminar was held at the same venue on the 3^rd November with Stellenbosch’s Materials Engineering group being represented by Thorsten Becker, Gerrit Ter Haar and Nur Mohamed Dhansay.

RAPDASA was formed approximately two and a half decades ago as a representative association for industrial companies and research organizations involved in rapid product development. By 2000, RAPDASA initiated their annual conference to encourage the sharing of research between those involved in rapid product development and benefit from the international world on the topic.

The pre-conference seminar largely focussed post graduate students, who are part of the CPAM programme, presenting a short paper on what their research focus is along with any progress made to date. Thorsten Becker gave an overview of the progress made at Stellenbosch University as well as the University of Cape Town on the topic of additive manufacturing of titanium parts. Gerrit Ter Haar gave a well-received presentation on his progress to date on the microstructural investigation into tensile properties of SLM produced Ti-6Al-4V.

Day 1-3 of the conference was labelled the “South African Additive Manufacturing Innovation Showcase”. This conference focussed on bringing industries and local university research activities closer together. The likes of the Department of Science and Technology, Aerosud, Wohlers Associates Inc, Airbus, SLM Solutions Group AG amongst others all presented their roles in Additive Manufacturing over the three days. This is also where Nur Mohamed Dhansay presented his paper on work he proposes to focus on for the duration of his PhD. At the end of each conference day, delegates were treated to various functions. End of day one a cocktail function was held at the CSIR in which delegates had the opportunity of a site visit to Aeroswift.  A Gala dinner was held at the end of day two while the final day was drawn to an end with a closing session given by the RAPDASA officials.

The ending of this conference also saw the beginning or Thorsten Becker’s Stay at the University of Leuven in Belgium.