Research Tool to Support Hybridized Additive Manufacturing

The availability of diverse feedstock materials with tunable properties and additive-manufacturing equipment capable of fabricating complex, multi-functional structures will allow the U.S. military to produce components with properties tailored to local needsat reduced weight, cost, and schedule. Realizing this goal requires improvements in both additive-manufacturing equipment and materials.To achieve these improvements, a Phase II SBIR effort is proposed to develop print-compatible metal, optical, dielectric, magnetic, and structural feedstock materials and refine the capabilities of multi-material multi-jet-print manufacturing equipment.The ability to tailor the properties of the feedstock materials and to deposit them into complex 3D freeform gradient patterns will be demonstrated. The properties of the materials will be tested over their tunable range of operation and over a range of temperatures. Homogeneous and heterogeneous material samples will then be reliability and environmentally tested. To demonstrate the capabilities of the innovation, a series of increasingly complex assemblies integrating dielectrically tuned substrates, conductive traces, radio-frequency antennas, and optical functionality will be made and demonstrated.