America Makes Hosts Additive Projects
Two special topic competitions challenge participants to generate solutions related to process control for powder bed additive manufacturing.
America Makes will host two special topic project competitions on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory. Participants are being challenged to conduct research on two different aspects of powder bed additive processes.
The first special topic project is seeking solutions to demonstrate and quantify the benefits of feedback-driven, closed-loop process control for powder bed fusion additive manufacturing of thermoplastic production parts. Two prizes of $400,000 will be awarded to the selected project winners.
The second special project asks participants to develop an open source protocol or application programming interface (API) for powder bed process control so that researchers and process engineers can explore the design space of scan strategies, as well as improve the provenance for validation datasets. A demonstration of the protocol or API in application is required, and two prizes of $500,000 will be awarded.
To be eligible, all participants on a team must be America Makes members, with a submission deadline for approval due August 29, 2014. Participants will have 18 months (15 months of technical effort, three months of final report) to develop a solution to their special topic project of choice. Additional details are available at americamakes.us/special-project-call.
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