In a significant step towards transforming the United Kingdom’s defence supply chain, Babcock International Group (Babcock) and Plastometrex have partnered under Project TAMPA, the UK Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) flagship programme aimed at accelerating the certification and adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) across the defence sector.
The initiative seeks to address one of the military’s most pressing challenges—ensuring the availability of mission-critical components when global supply chains are strained, suppliers are unavailable, or legacy parts have become obsolete. By validating that additively manufactured parts can meet stringent defence standards through digital workflows and distributed production, Project TAMPA is reshaping the future of manufacturing resilience for the MOD.
At the core of this effort is non-destructive metrology, specifically Plastometrex’s Profilometry-based Indentation Plastometry (PIP) technology, which will play a central role in certifying the mechanical performance of AM components. Delivered via the PLX-Benchtop platform, PIP extracts stress-strain curves directly from indentation test data using an inverse finite element approach. This enables rapid, physics-based characterization of materials without the need for traditional destructive tensile tests.
Unlike tensile testing—which requires the destruction of parts—PIP provides faster, lower-cost, and richer evaluations of mechanical properties, even on samples as small as 1.5 x 1.5 x 0.75 mm. This allows engineers to perform detailed inspections directly on final components, improving the speed and accuracy of qualification within digital manufacturing ecosystems.
The system supports key areas within Project TAMPA, including:
- Within-build variation: detecting property changes through the height of AM builds that tensile tests often overlook.
- Build-to-build variation: identifying material inconsistencies between production runs.
- Equivalency demonstrations: establishing alignment between PIP results and tensile test data across multiple alloys.
Dr Mike Coto, CCO at Plastometrex, commented: “Project TAMPA is about more than advancing additive manufacturing, it’s about national resilience. The ability to securely share digital designs, manufacture parts where they are needed, and know with confidence that those parts will perform as expected is transformative for defence. PIP enables that confidence, reducing reliance on slow and destructive methods, and ensuring that the MOD can access the parts it needs, when it needs them.”
Babcock International, a key partner in the initiative and an existing Plastometrex customer, will coordinate the manufacture of laser powder bed fusion parts and oversee cross-supplier comparisons. This work will demonstrate how distributed AM can deliver certifiable outcomes equivalent to conventionally approved parts, ensuring operational readiness even in disrupted supply scenarios.
Kate Robinson, Managing Director Through Life Equipment Support (TLES) at Babcock, added: “We will develop solutions for complex parts across various platforms to ensure material availability, reduce obsolescence, and enhance the MOD’s defence capabilities. Our collaboration with Plastometrex is a terrific example of how innovation can accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing within the defence supply chain.”
By enabling rapid, non-destructive validation of part performance, the partnership between Babcock and Plastometrex represents a major stride toward digital certification and resilient supply chains. With work set to begin in early November, Project TAMPA marks a defining moment in the integration of non-destructive testing, metrology, and additive manufacturing within the UK’s defence ecosystem.
