ASTM International, Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, USA, has announced seven new Research to Standards (R2S) projects that support ASTM’s Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence (AM CoE) and its mission to advance acceleration of AM standardisation and industrial adoption.

Two project calls were completed in 2021, the Request for Ideas (RFI) and the Call for Projects (CFP). These investments mark ASTM International’s fourth year of funded AM research projects and include additional in-kind contributions. Projects submitted for both the RFI and CFP were reviewed and approved by members of the executive subcommittee within ASTM’s Additive Manufacturing technologies committee (F42).

“We are excited to launch these efforts to enhance the AM industry’s ability to develop much needed consensus-based standards,” stated Dr Mohsen Seifi, ASTM International’s director of global Additive Manufacturing programmes. “We have received overwhelming responses from the ASTM community to both of the project calls, covering a wide range of impactful ideas to address critical needs of the industry.”

In response to the RFI, over ninety ideas for projects were submitted by ASTM International members for consideration and the following three high-impact ideas were selected:

• Auburn University will develop a standardised practice for measuring AM part density, specifically focused on characteristic defects of AM processes
• The UK-based Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) will develop classification and measurement methodologies for powder cleanliness assessments
• Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) in collaboration with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and AON3D will develop a test method for interlayer shear properties in parts fabricated with Material Extrusion (MEX)

The CFP was introduced to allow non-AM CoE partners to propose and receive support for projects. The following four projects were selected:

• Colorado School of Mines will collect data to support the development of a standard method measuring the load-bearing cross sectional area for mechanical testing of coupons with as-built AM surfaces
• Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT (Germany) will develop a guideline for build job continuation after process interruptions
• The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) will generate data on the effect of moisture on the AM process and properties of additively manufactured parts to develop a methodology to evaluate critical moisture levels
• The University of Alabama at Birmingham will focus on developing a test method to measure the tensile properties of filaments used in MEX

Each of these projects will address one or more standardisation gaps listed in the Additive Manufacturing Standardization Collaborative (AMSC) roadmap published by ANSI and America Makes.

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