Hybrid Additive Manufacturing of Complex Functional Structures

Reliability in extreme environments is a critical challenge to realizing part consolidation and rapid manufacturing electronics and multi-material components in space vehicles. Meeting this challenge will greatly increase the performance, lifetime, and reliability of NASA exploration vehicles. Reducing existing tooling costs will ensure systems are commercially viable and thereby available for future NASA and government needs. Engeniusmicro (EGM) and Alabama A&M University (AAMU) propose to develop additive manufacturing materials, tooling, and DFAM for multi-material electronics and sensor structures. The team will down-select commercially available additive materials based known past performance in similar environments and based on new simulations of expected performance. The team will develop additive manufacturing processes specific for down-selected materials in single- and multi-material test coupons. Coupons will be tested for relevant mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties. Results of the material study will define process and design rules for future prototypes. The STTR will further develop EngeniusMicro’s hybrid additive manufacturing tooling and software for the new material characteristics. The hybrid tooling includes multi-material and multi-process additive manufacturing heads, milling spindle, surface treatment tools. The control software will integrate process and design rules into DFAM procedure to output unified machine codes and process flows. The system will be a compact, affordable system with 50 µm resolution.