The US additive manufacturing accelerator, America Makes, announced two new project calls with $1.7M available. In further news, the Ohio-based National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute has awarded Boeing Research and Technology a project to develop advanced 3D printing materials.
Boeing’s Auburn-based R&D unit will carry the work on the GAMAT project supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The goal is to develop additive materials with Ti-6AI-4V. Partners are expected to include RPMI Innovations, Edison Welding Institute (EWI), Auburn University, ASTM International, and the University of Texas El Paso.
“Our project calls are a way for the membership to accelerate AM technologies and innovation in the manufacturing sector and beyond,” said John Wilczynski, Executive Director of America Makes. “While there are some existing organizational or company-specific proprietary AM design databases, there is currently very limited industry or government-accepted standard design data for AM in the public domain,” added the Executive Director of America Makes. “This data is needed to further shape and support the broader adoption of AM.”
America Makes Project Call Details: Rapid Innovation Call (RIC) 2022
The advancement of AM technology, suitable for the needs of members, is the emphasis of the 2022 Rapid Innovation Call. To support America Makes’ mission of fostering and accelerating the development and implementation of cutting-edge, cost-efficient, energy-efficient AM technologies to satisfy both defense and commercial demands, NCDMM is seeking competitive ideas. The America Makes Roadmap Advisory Group evaluates and prioritizes the thematic submissions.
America Makes provides the estimated cost of this $400,000 call through AFRL. A total of four awards, each with a maximum federal funding amount of $100,000, are anticipated.
RIC will address five subject areas. Implementing supported projects and programs by America Makes advances in the industrialization of AM technology. RIC satisfies the roadmap needs, which are determined by the membership. These depend on engagement and participation in working and advisory groups and workshops. This Rapid Innovation Call meets the requirements of Design, Process, Materials, Value Chain, and AM Genome swimlanes.
Steel (HY-80) Wire-Arc Additive Heat Treatment (SWAAHT) Project Call
With $1.35 million in federal funding, the Steel (HY-80) Wire-Arc Additive Heat Treatment (SWAAHT) Project Call aims to educate and develop modeling frameworks that the metal AM community can use to improve ferritic steel DED and post-build HT procedures at scale. Responses outlining a metal additive manufacturing project are being sought by NCDMM, AFRL, and the Office of Naval Research (ONR). This project aims to create an understanding and a set of tools (experimental and computational models) that are particular to the choice of feedstocks, AM build parameters, and post-build heat treatments used on the DED of high-strength structural steel shapes.
The targeted use case examined in this study will be MIL-100S-1 DED HY-80 casting alternatives. The goal is to either achieve optimized DED parameters and industrial scale post-build heat treatment practices for thick and thin sections or a well-characterized matrix of limitations regarding the heat treatment response of MIL-100S-1 DED builds. This includes recommendations for feedstock composition modifications/changes and associated post-build heat treatment design.
The integrated project team (IPT), made up of pertinent subject matter experts from government, business, and academia, must be described in the proposals submitted in response to this project call. Expertise is required in arc welding, physical steel metallurgy, materials (thermodynamics/kinetics), additive manufacturing, industrial heat treatment, and finite element process modeling.
Projects carried out by America Makes
The goal of America Makes is to hasten the uptake of additive manufacturing technology in the US manufacturing industry. In order to promote an open exchange of knowledge and research about additive manufacturing, America Makes also seeks to improve the competitiveness of local manufacturing. America Makes simplifies the process to develop, test, and use versatile and effective additive manufacturing methods.
Previously, America Makes has awarded numerous additive manufacturing projects in line with its mission. In January 2022, the institute launched a $500,000 call for model-based projects as part of its Leveraging Additive for High-Velocity Applications, or “LAVA” program, with the potential to help mitigate the variances seen in the properties of some 3D printed components built for mach-speed usage, which can prevent their deployment.
Arizona State University (ASU) was awarded an $800,000 matching grant from America Makes for a Directed Project Opportunity to enhance post-processing techniques for additive manufacturing. Phoenix Analysis and Design Technologies (PADT), an engineering and 3D printing service provider based in Arizona, Quintus Technologies, an expert in high-pressure technologies, and Phoenix Heat Treating, a producer of metal heat treatments, are all involved in this project.
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