At its annual Technical Review and Exchange (TRX) event, America Makes announced a new Rapid Innovation Call (RIC) for its members for projects worth $500K in total to further advance Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies. This will be funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Manufacturing and Industrial Base Technology Division,

“This RIC announcement is incredibly exciting, as it represents a concerted effort by our membership community at all levels – from members to our Roadmap Advisory Group and our Executive Committee – to strategically prioritise our investment in the RIC technical topics to what will best benefit our industry the most next,” stated Brandon D Ribic, PhD, America Makes Technology Director. “The America Makes membership community is truly working together to drive the direction we take to mature and advance AM technologies. We anticipate the outcomes of this RIC to make a significant impact in addressing critical areas of need.”

This RIC will address the needs of the membership in six topic domains:

1. Understanding build interruptions via AM monitoring methods
   The technical focus of this project is to understand AM build interruptions via in-situ monitoring methods, as current monitoring research often focuses on ‘continuous’ operations of AM processes. The goal is to gain a better understanding and quantify processing conditions when AM processes encounter various forms of interruptions.
2. AM part families for product qualification & certification (Q&C)
   The technical focus is to leverage existing AM data to create AM part families to increase the amount validated AM data within the public domain and develop Q&C standards. The goal is to drive broader adoption of AM in such specific industries as aerospace, medical, and aviation where Q&C of AM parts is critically needed. There is a minimum cost share requirement of 25%.
3. Defect detection and mitigation via hybrid AM
   The technical focus of this project is to apply such hybrid AM approaches as AM and subtractive manufacturing operations to remedy various AM material and product defects. The goal is to develop and demonstrate reliable methods to mitigating defect formation during the AM processes, as well explore and validate methods to remedying defects as built.
4. Characterisation of transient phenomena impacting in-situ molten pool temperature measurement for AM reactive metals
   The technical focus of this project is to advance in-situ molten pool temperature measurement for AM of reactive metals. The goal is to measure molten pool surface temperatures accurately and reliably as a method to correlate processing parameters to material microstructure for metal AM.
5. Advancing lightweight design for AM of thin walls and struts
   The technical focus of this project is to support lightweight design methods of AM thin walls and struts by advancing the processability of these structures. The goal is to foster a deeper understanding of the manufacturability of lightweight designs and structures to advance adoption in the automotive, aerospace, medical and energy industries.
6. Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to enhance AM product performance
   The technical focus of this project is to gain a greater understanding of how to best leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to benefit AM processes. The goal is to use IoT technologies on digital data extracted from AM process to quantify, assess, and improve AM product performance and quantify AM product pedigree.

Submission deadline is September 2, 2021, with the award announcement anticipated for September 20. At least five awards are expected, with an associated maximum federal funding available for each award of $100K.

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