DARPA to boost additive manufacturing of critical structural parts by evaluating 3D printing at manufacture
ARLINGTON, Va. – U.S. military researchers are partnering with industry in attempts to boost the use of additive manufacturing -- also called 3D printing -- for critical structural parts by developing the ability to predict the life and viability of 3D-printed parts during manufacturing.
Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., issued a broad agency announcement (HR001124S0018) for the Structures Uniquely Resolved to Guarantee Endurance (SURGE) program.
SURGE seeks to rethink and accelerate distributed additive manufacturing of critical structural parts by developing ways to predict part life directly from data collected during additive manufacturing in a way that is transferable across disparate machines, materials, locations, and geometries.
Related: The dawn of military 3D printing
The program will merge in-situ sensing technologies, process modeling, and microstructure-based fatigue-life methods to quantify the useful life of manufactured hardware. Predictions will come from extensive experimental validation.
The SURGE program aims to demonstrate an alternative path to the current machine-focused paradigm of part qualification in additive manufacturing.
3D printing today works to perfect the operation of individual additive manufacturing machines to produce material repeatably with known properties through months or years of process optimization and material property testing at a cost that easily can surpass millions of dollars, researchers say.
Related: Military starts to run with 3D printing and additive manufacturing
Instead, SURGE will explore a new approach where the life of every unique manufactured component is predicted on the fly, with the goal of producing any part geometry on any machine, anywhere in the world, at any time, while guaranteeing part life.
Companies interested should submit abstracts no later than 9 May 2024 and full proposals no later than 1 July 2024 to the DARPA Broad Agency Announcement Tool online at https://baa.darpa.mil/Public/SecurityAgreement.
Email questions or concerns to DARPA at [email protected]. More information is online at https://sam.gov/opp/73bf9c89ba6e494ab7ddb3939a106e68/view.
John Keller | Editor-in-Chief
John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.
