News: Work begins on new AMRC buildings

Building work has begun on a Knowledge Transfer Centre (KTC) at The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing on the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham.

The centre is part of a £40m hub, made possible through the European Regional Development Fund, that will further extend the £100m AMRC partnership that has successfully bridged the gap between academia, industry and government.

In addition, the contract for the construction of an extension to the existing Factory of the Future building has been awarded to ISG.

The extension will provide capacity for an expanded Composite Centre and together the facilities will increase R&D and knowledge transfer activities with regional companies and give them access to world-leading research and state-of-the-art equipment.

The AMRC Knowledge Transfer Centre (pictured above) is being built by BAM Construction and will provide dedicated meeting and training space to engage businesses along the manufacturing supply chain. The eye-catching building, designed by Bond Bryan, is based around a 830 sq m training workshop, where visitors can gain hands-on experience of the new manufacturing, machining and assembly techniques developed at the AMRC.

The building also offers highly flexible meeting and teaching rooms, equipped with the latest presentation and networking technology. The KTC will be able to host conferences of up to 350 people.

The new Composite Centre (pictured below) will enable regional companies to work alongside AMRC researchers during the design and manufacture of their pre-production prototypes, before investing in their own production facilities.

The 3,200 sq m extension will be split into a general workshop and a controlled environment including high-spec clean rooms.

Production equipment will include a large autoclave and oven, and a series of robots to support the centre's research into automating the production of complex composites components.

The Composite Centre is currently based in the original AMRC building which will now be dedicated to the AMRC's fast-growing Advanced Structural Testing Centre (ASTC).

The £25m Nuclear AMRC on the site is also nearing completion.

AMRC website

Images: AMRC