America Makes Seeks Proposals for $3.2M Delta Qual Project

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The National Center for Defense of Manufacturing and Machining and America Makes are seeking additive manufacturing project proposals with $3.2 million in funding available through the Air Force Research Laboratory.

A kickoff webinar with information about the proposed projects is slated for 2 p.m. Wednesday, and registration is required. The submission deadline is May 22, with anticipated awards announced June 23. To be eligible, the lead proposer must be a current member of America Makes by May 8.

Up to seven awards in three topic areas are expected for the project, known as the Demonstration of Novel Methods for Effective AM Process Qualification/Requalification – Delta Qualification or Delta Qual.

With qualification and requalification of machines and materials a major barrier to the broad adoption of additive manufacturing, the objective of the project is to establish an additive manufacturing process that increases agility, allowing additive manufacturing to respond to changes in technology or the supply chain base, and decrease the requirement for time-consuming and costly total requalification.

“This project call is designed to provide America Makes and our stakeholders with a framework of qualification methods and data points that enable new technologies, solutions and processing standards to be rapidly qualified for use within the nation’s additive manufacturing supply chain,” said Brandon Ribic, technology director at America Makes.

“To remain competitive, the AM industry must quickly adapt to the needs of the warfighter and other commercial users that are often confronted with excessive costs and years to qualify minor changes to the AM processes. Delta Qual is a very important step to provide foundational information for the industrialization of AM technologies” he said.

Up to two awards not to exceed $700,000 will be given for major delta qualification demonstration, and up to four awards not to exceed $350,000 will be given for minor delta qualification demonstration. Those topics seek to make a single change to the baseline process, while employing advanced numerical, analytical and experimental methodologies to accelerate the process and reduce the cost of establishing equivalence to the baseline.

A third topic will outline an approach including a metal additive manufacturing process-specific team, which will serve as subject matter for experts to collect and harmonize additive manufacturing standards and provide a map showing how standard organizations can include useful language for updating additive manufacturing process qualification.

More information about the project is available HERE.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.