America Makes Awards $2.3M in Funding

America Makes announces the awardees of three project calls worth $2.23M 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 were originally announced in July. Collectively, the technical project focus areas seek to accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) 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,” says Brandon D. Ribic, Ph.D., 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,” Ribic adds. “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 modernization goals.”

Subject to the finalization of all contractual details and requirements, the selected America Makes Project Call Awardees are as follows:

Open Project Call 2020

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

Topic: Utilizing 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 modeling and in-situ process monitoring techniques for metals 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

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 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 behavior of AM metal lattice structures.

Topic: Tensile Behavior of AM Lattice Structures

Awarded Team

• The Ohio State University

America Makes anticipates the previously announced Member Driven Rapid Innovation Call to get underway soon. Information on this project call can be found here. americamakes.us/member-driven-project-call.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.

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