Open Call for Innovative Defense-Related Dual-Purpose Technologies/Solutions with a Clear Air Force Stakeholder Need

The potential benefits of Additive Manufacturing (AM) – low-volume production runs, near-net shape manufacturing, on-demand builds at decentralized locations – are offset by the variability and complexity of the AM processes themselves. Current efforts to apply AM for fabrication and/or repair of hardware require significant resources in design and certification cycle time, as well as the associated costs due to physical testing. A scalable method for rapid AM component qualification is sought to support Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office (RSO) efforts. In this Phase II SBIR Program, VEXTEC, in partnership with Universal Technology Corporation (UTC) and the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI), proposes to develop a fully-linked AM integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) tool powered by a Material Digital Twin (MDT). The tool will link current commercially-available technologies (OpenAdditive-TM AM hardware, AMSENSE-(R) process monitoring software, and VPS-MICRO-(R) computational durability prediction software) to accelerate AM process development and validation; providing an affordable, rapid solution for AM components. This unified tool will provide the ability to optimize and scale AM processes virtually, reducing the physical test burdens for qualification. Once validated, the tool will give RSO and AF engineers a reliable, repeatable process to reduce sustainment costs and increase fleet readiness.