America Makes Announces Winners of $2.9 Million Project Call

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

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has great potential to advance the global competitiveness of U.S. industry while increasing the resilience and manufacturing efficiency of the domestic supply chain. As a new technology, successfully advancing its adoption requires significant testing and data analysis to validate acceptable operational qualifications. This process is a complex and extensive undertaking involving several tasks (quality assurance) where production practices and processing data substantiate that the workflow output is acceptable (quality control).

America Makes recognizes the value of knowing what data to collect, where, how much and when that data informs acceptable AM ​​activities. Validation of data-driven qualification methods can reduce the cost and time of demonstrating acceptance. Operational qualification includes many tasks leading to process control documentation that is 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 collection and analysis methods to drive adoption of metal AM operations across the industry.

Below you will find the list of award winners and related subject areas.

Project 1: Methods for demonstrating operational qualification

  • Team Leader: Wichita State University – National Institute for Aeronautical Research
  • Project team: N/A

Project 2: Accelerate Verification and Certification: Improving Laser PBF and Electron Beam PBF Operational Quality through Real-Time Analytics, Technology Integration and Experimental Platforms for a Resilient Supply Chain

  • Team Leader: 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 Leader: Dyndrite Corporation
  • Project Team: ASTM International, Siemens Energy, Inc.

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