America Makes Announces $2.23M in Funding for Project Call Awardees

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – America Makes has awarded $2.23 million in project calls to organizations working to address supply chain needs and accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing.

The funding comes from the Air Force Research Laboratory’s materials and manufacturing directorate. The project call was announced in July.

“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,” said Brandon D. Ribic, America Makes’ technology director, in a statement. “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 [the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Egnineering] to award more projects in these critical technical areas. We congratulate all of the awarded teams and look forward to the project outcomes greatly benefiting the supply chain, the additive manufacturing industry and the Department of Defense’s modernization goals.”

Awards were made in several fields: 

• Using machine learning and artificial intelligence to predict material quality.
• Cross-validation of modeling.
• Cybersecurity for additive manufacturing training.
• Creating a reliable material for hypersonic uses.
• Gradient printing of materials for use in hypersonics.
• A method to quantify the mechanical behavior of metal lattices made with additive manufacturing.

For the machine learning project call, the awarded teams are Senvol with Northrup Gruman in conjunction with the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University, Stratasys Direct Manufacturing and Pilgrim Consulting; Penn State University Applied Research Laboratory; Open Additive LLC with AddiGuru and Wright State University; and University of Dayton Research Institute with Northrup Gruman, Zeiss, Open Additive and Macy Consulting.

The award for cross-validation of physics-based modeling and in-situ process monitoring techniques for metals additive manufacturing was given to Penn State’s Applied Research Lab with Applied Optimization Inc, while the cybersecurity project was headed by ASTM International with Auburn University.

For the hypersonics materials project call, the awarded teams are GE Additive with Aerojet Rocketdyne and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and 3D Systems Corp. with Lockheed Martin. Also in the hypersonics sector, the gradient material awarded team was Boeing with QuesTek Innovations and RPM Innovations.

Finally, the award for the study of latticee structures was given to a team at Ohio State University.

The next project call will be for Member Driven Rapid Innovation; it is expected to begin soon. More information on the project call is available at AmericaMakes.us/member-driven-project-call.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.