AIMEN & Hybrid Manufacturing for Smart-Pumps

About AIMEN and their role in Smart-Pumps

With 59 years of expertise serving innovation and industry, AIMEN is a Spanish and Southern European leader in Research, Development and Innovation (R&D&I) providing technological services in the fields of materials, advanced manufacturing processes, digitisation, and sustainability.

Located in O Porriño (Pontevedra, Spain), it has more than 330 highly qualified professionals and a cutting-edge technological ecosystem that includes advanced laboratories and unique pilot plants. These resources enable the development of innovative solutions in key sectors including mobility, aeronautics, energy, metalworking, and chemicals.

As a leader in laser applications, AIMEN has extensive expertise in projects funded by European programmes such as Horizon Europe. Its network of collaborators (which includes leading companies, universities, and research centres across countries such as Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Finland and Sweden) contributes to the promotion of digital and efficient manufacturing, and contributes to transforming the global industry towards smarter and more sustainable models.

Within the Smart-Pumps project, AIMEN’s research team focuses on the development and processing of metallic materials using lase

r technology. AIMEN’s role in the project includes the manufacturing of the new designs of heat pump components by exploiting Multi-Material Hybrid Manufacturing components, a pioneering approach that combines 3D metal printing and machining to create components using different advanced materials in a single process.

Current focus and contributions

AIMEN’s objective is to lead and execute the hybrid manufacturing activities. This solution combines Laser Powder Directed Energy Deposition (LP-DED), a 3D printing process that melts metal powder with a laser source, and subtractive manufacturing (machining) in the same processing/robotised cell. This ensures high component quality and overcomes challenges related to the processability of materials, complex shapes and surface finishing.

The work will address analysing material properties, manufacturing co

nstraints, process stability and repeatability, while enabling the integration of smart functionalities where necessary.

Manufacturing, monitoring and validation strategies will be implemented to ensure industrial viability, performance and compliance with quality requirements. Process parameters and manufacturing routes will be further optimised through monitoring-based approaches to improve robustness, efficiency and overall production readiness.

Challenges and Solutions

One of the biggest challenges in Smart-Pumps has been the integration of two complex and fundamentally different manufacturing processes: a large-scale, high‑deposition‑rate Additive Manufacturing (AM) DED process, and a machining process, both in the same robotised cell.

The targeted components of the new heat pumps require machining of thin wall sections, very small cavities, and tight tolerances. This creates an intrinsic challenge between a process optimized for speed and material addition, and another process that demands meticulous accuracy and controlled geometries. Managing distortions, ensuring dimensional stability after printing, and predicting how 3D-printing-induced inconsistencies affect the subsequent machining steps, have required a deep technical understanding and significant experimentation.

An additional and related to the previous major challenge has been the absence of an established methodology for combining both processes in a standardised and repeatable methodology.

Since the new designs of the Smart-Pumps project’s requirements are novel, it was essential to design a pioneering workflow from the ground up. This implied defining not only technical parameters, but also decision criteria, sequencing strategies, and quality checkpoints to ensure consistency across iterations. To overcome these challenges, AIMEN worked on several key actions:

Improving the characterisation and understanding of the limitations and sensitivities of both AM DED and machining.
Promoting iterative testing to refine process parameters and reduce uncertainties at the interfaces between both technologies.
Contributing to the development of a structured protocol that documents lessons learned, standardises the integration steps, and provides a reliable guideline for future implementations.

This systematic approach has helped transform an initially uncertain and complex process into a more predictable and controlled workflow.

Impact on heat-pumps’ technology

AIMEN expects Smart-Pumps to have a long-term impact by strengthening the technological foundations of next‑generation heat pumps and enabling their wider adoption. One of the key aimed contributions is the establishment of more reliable, standardised, and manufacturable components, especially as the sector moves toward more complex geometries, advanced materials, and integrated functionalities.

By advancing additive and hybrid manufacturing for critical heat‑pump parts, Smart-Pumps can enable a shift toward designs that are both more efficient and easier to produce on an industrial scale. In the long term, AIMEN is looking for the industrial implementation of these developments to contribute to a more flexible supply chain, where customisable and high‑performance components can be produced with higher repeatability and lower environmental impact.

Additionally, the Smart-Pumps project targets integrating sensing capabilities enabling more intelligent monitoring to pave the way for heat‑pump systems that are more predictive and resilient, easier to maintain, and more sustainable. This would not only improve operational reliability but also extend the lifetime of the equipment.

Ultimately, AIMEN envisions that Smart-Pumps will accelerate the transition toward heat‑pump technologies that are more efficient, more durable, easier to produce, and more aligned with future energy‑efficiency and sustainability goals, supporting their broader deployment across Europe.