Above a year after Version 1.0, America Makes and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) have released a preliminary final draft of the AMSC Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing.
Ahead of the final publication date, scheduled for June 2018, the roadmap is open to public comments concerning necessary revisions and clarification. Comment can be sent to [email protected] using a designated form (instructions here) and will remain open until May 3 2018.
Setting the standard in AM
The AMSC Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing was devised by America Makes and ANSI as an identification of standard practice and R&D areas of interest for 3D printing in aerospace, defense, and medicine.
Far from an attempt to develop standards alone, “…the hope is that the roadmap will be broadly adopted by the standards community and that it will facilitate a more coherent and coordinated approach to the future development of standards and specifications for additive manufacturing.”
Over 150 industry stakeholders, including GE, EOS, Autodesk, Arconic, Apple, Boeing and 3D Systems, have participated in the document’s production.
Version 2.0 updates
Since Version 1.0, a long list of changes have been made to help clarify sections and subsections of the document.
The main area of expansion is content relating to polymers. Areas of improvement include post-curing methods, design allowables, the biocompatibility and cleanliness of 3D printed medical device and a subsection on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Guidance on Technical Considerations for AM Devices.
The latter section takes into account considerations made by the FDA’s most recent statement on the future of 3D printing in medicine, and makes important distinctions about what the administration does (e.g. the end product) and does not (e.g. materials) approve for medical use.
Gaps in guidance and R&D
In total, the document identifies 94 gaps in available standards and specifications
across the following key additive manufacturing fields:
- Design
- Process and materials (precursor materials, process control, post-processing, and finished material properties)
- Qualification and certification
- Nondestructive evaluation
- Maintenance
In 65 of these cases, the roadmap also identifies a need for further research and development. Preliminary Final Draft Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing Version 2.0 can be read online here.
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