The researchers at Auburn’s National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence — NCAME, for short — are also working with the U.S. Army to elevate combat readiness by advancing the adoption and implementation of additive technologies in Army operations.
NCAME is assisting both the Army and the Federal Aviation Authority by closing gaps in additive manufacturing standards, which will ensure consistency in the durability and performance of 3-D printed products and parts. Together, these two new grants are valued at $7.3 million.
“Material variation is what I call the ‘Achilles heel’ of additive manufacturing,” said NCAME Director Nima Shamsaei, the Philpott-WestPoint Stevens Distinguished Professor of mechanical engineering at Auburn.
“It can make the qualification and certification of additively manufactured materials and parts challenging.”
In other words, the Auburn center’s researchers want to crack the code on why 3-D printed products made on different industrial-scale machines can have properties that don’t match.
The goal: Generate reliable materials data to advance this revolutionary technology.
Original source can be found here.
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