The US Air Drive Analysis Lab (AFRL) has awarded The Barnes International Advisors (TBGA), an additive manufacturing (AM) consultancy headquartered in Pittsburgh, the TEAM RED (Thorough Analysis of AM with Rigorous Experience and Knowledge) contract for acceleration of AM requirements. TEAM RED is a part of the Delta Qualification program at America Makes, the unique Manufacturing USA institute primarily based in Youngstown, Ohio.
America Makes introduced the Delta Qualification venture name in April 2023, with the venture’s full title being “Demonstration of Novel Strategies for Efficient AM Course of Qualification/Re-Qualification”. In America Makes’ announcement for the venture name, “the Pink Staff” (Subject 3) description solicited responses for “an method that features a steel AM process-specific group to function material specialists to gather and harmonize AM requirements”. Respondents have been additionally requested to “present a map” that can enable requirements organizations to replace the language utilized in future AM course of qualification.
For TEAM RED, TBGA has joined forces with SAE Worldwide (previously the Society of Automotive Engineers), in addition to an advisory panel that features representatives from Carnegie Mellon College (CMU), BlueForge Alliance (BFA), Sandia Nationwide Laboratories, and NASA. TEAM RED may even be working with the six different recipients of the Delta Qualification awards, 4 of that are members of AM Ahead.
In a press launch concerning the award of the TEAM RED contract, TBGA president John Barnes stated, “It’s a privilege to be chosen by the federal government to advise them because the unbiased group. With TEAM RED we pulled collectively a gaggle that features TBGA’s expertise but in addition others. A teaming effort was one of the best ways to method this drawback and we’re excited to get going. Qualification continues to be a wrestle for many nevertheless it doesn’t need to be. Engineers remedy issues and qualify issues. Let’s go!”
John Barnes’ enthusiasm for the esoteric ins and outs of AM standardization could possibly be why that is a minimum of the third DoD contract for TBGA and its efforts this 12 months: again in April, DoD awarded the consultancy almost $2 million for a venture to assist develop a resilient AM ecosystem (the Resilient Manufacturing Ecosystem (RME) venture). TBGA’s function in serving to to create the Neighborhood 91 AM campus, which shares house with the Pittsburgh Worldwide Airport, was integral to that first contract, and Neighborhood 91 will presumably play a task in TEAM RED’s work, too. The RME venture bought one other enormous increase final week, when it was awarded $10 million through passage of the protection appropriations invoice.
Anybody who doesn’t suppose {that a} US government-backed scale up of AM is already in full swing isn’t paying shut consideration to AM sector information. Within the first place, there are the large rounds of contracts like these introduced within the final couple of weeks by DoD and the Division of Power (DOE). Secondly, there’s the nice accumulation of all of the “little” contracts like these that can have longstanding impacts far past their nominal greenback quantity.
With this in thoughts, it have to be confused, as I did in a put up from final week, that you may’t choose what a corporation as giant because the DoD is doing on an example-by-example foundation, however fairly should take into consideration what it does over the span of quarters and years. By that metric, anybody who stands again and displays on what the DoD has carried out with AM over the past decade can solely conclude {that a} know-how buildup has been efficiently executed. Widespread commercialization is the one logical subsequent step.
Photographs courtesy of The Barnes International Advisors
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