Low Cost Additive Casting System for Aerospace Grade Aluminum

The Air Force experiences challenges with sourcing metal components especially castings.  To address this, they have sought to use additive manufacturing which presents a number of challenges particular with qualification. More recently Tinker Air Force Base through the Reverse Engineering and Critical Tooling lab (REACT) has installed a casting facility in order to be able to produce castings organically.  Skuld has a new patent pending process called Additive Manufacturing Evaporative Casting (AMEC) which joins polymer 3D printing with lost foam investment casting. This process can produce net shape components without tooling in less than a day and at lower cost than alternatives. This project is to develop and deploy a low cost system for the Air Force based on the AMEC process which achieves aerospace grade aluminum castings. The project will develop designs for equipment, establish the digital workflow, deploy a basic system, demonstrate AMEC on at least 2 components, demonstrate solidification isostatic pressing, and provide qualification testing data including to demonstrate AMS 2175 class B or better quality.