America Makes Announces Recipients of $2.9 Million Defense Project Call

America Makes (the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute) and the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) have chosen the winners of the $2.9 million Methods for Demonstrating Operational Qualification Project Call funded by the Department of the Air Force (DAF) ManTech Office.

According to the project organizers, Additive Manufacturing (AM) has great potential to advance the U.S. manufacturing global competitiveness while increasing domestic supply chain resiliency and production efficiency. As a novel technology, successfully advancing its adoption requires considerable testing and data analysis to validate acceptable operational qualifications. This process is a complex and extensive endeavor that includes various tasks, such as quality assurance, where manufacturing practices and processing data substantiate that workflow outputs are acceptable (quality control).

America Makes recognizes the value in knowing what data must be gathered, from where, how much and when that data substantiates acceptable AM operations. Validation of data-driven qualification methods can reduce the cost and time of demonstrating acceptance. Operational qualification includes many tasks that lead to process control documentation validated through analysis and testing to substantiate that the process meets material specification requirements.

The recipients of the Methods for Demonstrating Operational Qualifications project award are tasked with demonstrating data gathering and analysis methods to drive industrywide metal AM operations acceptance.

Award Winners and Related Topic Areas

• Project 1: Methods for Demonstrating Operational Qualification
  • Team Lead: Wichita State University - National Institute for Aviation Research
  • Project Team: N/A
• Project 2: Accelerate Control and Certification: Enhancing Laser PBF and Electron Beam PBF Operation Quality via Real-time Analytics, Technological Integration and Experimental Platforms for a Resilient Supply Chain
  • Team Lead: Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
  • Project Team: Addiguru, Beehive Industries, EOS North America, University of Michigan
• Project 3: Improving LPBF Operational Qualification through Software Automation
  • Team Lead: Dyndrite Corp.
  • Project Team: ASTM International, Siemens Energy

Project teams will report on their progress at the America Makes Technical Review and Exchange, and other industry events during the execution phase of the program.