Recently, the American additive manufacturing innovation organization (AmericaMakes) released two orientation projects to its Tinkerbell laser pointer members. The project is funded by the Manufacturing and Industrial Basic Technology Division of the Air Force Research Laboratory (ARL) Materials and Manufacturing Bureau.
The first project focused on accelerating large-scale additive manufacturing (ALSAM) research to overcome the major shortcomings of laser-selective melting (SLM) additive manufacturing techniques that limit the widespread use of SLM technology. The second project focused on advancing the Additive Manufacturing Post-Processing Technology (AAPT) study to better understand existing technologies to produce qualified parts, clarify the certification process, and reduce costs.
Among them, the ALSAM project includes a sub-project, and AmericaMakes and ARL will provide about 2.1 million US dollars in funding for the project, and the project bears a total cost of 525,000 US dollars. The technical requirements of the ALSAM project are consistent with the technical roadmap for additive manufacturing innovations, especially in relation to the temperature gradient control process in the process section. This part of the roadmap is designed to enable multi-power, multi-laser, multi-channel build path systems. To improve the time-varying control of the melting/sintering and solidification processes.
In addition, the ALSAM project is consistent with the work of the Department of Defense's Additive Manufacturing Roadmap. The ALSAM project will build an open source multi-laser source manufacturing research platform to identify best practices and quantify the efficiency of manufacturing parts for multi-laser source laser-selective melting equipment. In addition, ARL will build a platform for variable controllable experiments on multiple laser sources to improve the quality of new alloys through customized thermal management methods.
The AAPT project consists of two sub-projects, and AmericaMakes and ARL will provide approximately $1.6 million in funding for the project, with a project commitment team costing at least $800,000. The AAPT project must also be aligned with the US manufacturing technology roadmap, particularly with the Additive Manufacturing Technology Data Sheet in the Materials section, which focuses on developing key Additives in established materials/process and post-treatment processes. Manufacturing parameters to maintain stable mechanical properties of the additive manufacturing product independent of the machine, supplier, and/or material source.
Through the AAPT project, ARL seeks to address two important issues: first, the use of laser pointer selection melting to produce high-temperature nickel superalloy structures to quantify the mechanical properties of the structure; second, to quantify the hot isostatic pressing in the manufacture of high-temperature nickel superalloy specifications The effectiveness of the structure.