AMP - Advanced Manufacturing Park

A world-leading British company that is literally shaping the future has had its highly-specialised metals treatments recognised by one of the world's leading evaluation organisations.

Castings Technology International's vacuum heat-treatment installation, installed two years ago, is proving a vital strategic resource in UK and US projects for aircraft and other defence hardware, including unmanned aerial and ground vehicles and the Future Naval Gun.

Now it has won certification by the US National Aerospace and Defence Contractors Accreditation Programme (NADCAP), after a typically stringent audit.

NADCAP represents major suppliers, prime contractors and government agencies in the aerospace, defence and related industries. The new accreditation builds on the existing NADCAP approval for radiographic inspection and recent re-certification to the EN/AS 9100 standard.

Cti is based at the UK's only Advanced Manufacturing Park, in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. The installation, which incorporates a gas-fan quench facility, has been invaluable in the development of new, high performance steel, titanium and nickel-based alloys and in the optimisation of properties, surface finish and dimensional accuracy of cast components for critical applications.

It is proving to be a strategic resource in the execution of projects for defence primes and UK and US government agencies, such as the Taranis Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle; Joint Strike Fighter; Crusher and the APD (Autonomous Platform Demonstrator) Unmanned Ground Vehicles; the M777 Lightweight Howitzer; the NLOS-C (Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon); and the Future Naval Gun.

Cti has helped in these programmes by designing, prototyping, manufacturing pre-production and, in some cases, Low-Rate Initial Production (L-RIP) castings in steel and titanium alloys. On-site vacuum heat treatment has proved to be critical to achieving the exceptional levels of precision and mechanical properties in most of these rangy, thin-wall castings.