America Makes, Youngstown, Ohio, USA, has announced the awardees of three project calls worth $2.23 million in total funding from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Manufacturing and Industrial Base Technology Division and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering OUSD(R&E).

The projects, which were announced in July, aim to accelerate the adoption of Additive Manufacturing and address the needs of the supply chain as identified in the America Makes and Department of Defense (DoD) Roadmaps.

“With the July project call announcements, we also unveiled a new project call process to further enhance collaboration among our membership community and stakeholders, streamlining engagement with the Institute,” stated Brandon D Ribic, PhD, America Makes Technology Director. “This change made a difference in the strong member response and high-impact submissions we received.”

“As a result, we identified and secured additional funding from OUSD(R&E) to award more projects in these critical technical areas,” he continued. “We congratulate all of the awarded teams and look forward to the project outcomes greatly benefiting the supply chain, the AM industry, and the DoD’s modernisation goals.”

Subject to the finalisation of all contractual details and requirements, the awardees of the America Makes Project Call include:

Open Project Call 2020

The set of technical topic areas addressed in the Open Project Call were determined and prioritised by the America Makes membership community and stakeholders. Awards were made in the following technical areas:

Topic: Utilising machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches to predict additively manufactured material quality

Awarded Teams

• Project principal Senvol with Northrop Grumman; National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR), a part of Wichita State University (WSU); Stratasys Direct Manufacturing; and Pilgrim Consulting
• Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Laboratory (ARL)
• Project principal Open Additive, LLC with AddiGuru; and Wright State University
• Project principal University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) with Northrop Grumman; ZEISS; Open Additive, and Macy Consulting, Inc.

Topic: Cross-validation of physics-based modelling and in-situ process monitoring techniques for metal Additive Manufacturing

Awarded Team

• Project principal Pennsylvania State University ARL with Applied Optimization Inc.

Topic: Cybersecurity for Additive Manufacturing training

Awarded Team

• Project principal ASTM International with Auburn University

Additive Manufacturing of High Temperature Metals for Hypersonic Applications

The goal of the Hypersonic Project Call is to overcome the known shortfalls of traditional manufacturing processes by accelerating the maturation of AM of high-temperature metals in critical technical areas to improve cost, performance, and lead time for hypersonic capabilities.

Topic: Reliable manufacturing of complex scramjet flowpath components

Awarded Teams

• Project principal GE Additive with Aerojet Rocketdyne and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
• Project principal 3D Systems Corporation with Lockheed Martin

Topic: Gradient printing of material systems relevant to hypersonic applications

Awarded Team

• Project principal Boeing with QuesTek Innovations LLC and RPM Innovations, Inc. (RPMI)

Government Driven Rapid Innovation Call (RIC)

For this first Government Driven RIC, the technical focus was directed by the U.S. Army and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to quantify the intrinsic mechanical behaviour of AM metal lattice structures.

Topic: Tensile Behavior of AM Lattice Structures

Awarded Team

• The Ohio State University

America Makes states that the previously announced Member Driven Rapid Innovation Call is expected to get underway soon. Information on this project call can be found here.

www.americamakes.us