America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, and the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), have announced the winners of the 2.9M USD Methods for Demonstrating Operational Qualification Project Call funded by the Department of the Air Force (DAF) ManTech Office.
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 endeavour that includes various tasks (quality assurance) where manufacturing practices and processing data substantiate that workflow outputs are acceptable (quality control).
America Makes recognises 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 industry-wide metal AM operations acceptance.
Below is the list of 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, LLC, EOS North America, University of Michigan
Project 3: Improving LPBF Operational Qualification through Software Automation
- Team Lead: Dyndrite Corporation
- Project Team: ASTM International, Siemens Energy, Inc.
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.
