The Applied Science & Technology Research Organization of America (ASTRO America) will lead a 1.66 million USD project to advance rapid and cost-effective inspection and qualification methods for complex 3D printed parts.
Awarded under the Quality Test and Inspection Methods Expediency (QTIME) project call from America Makes and the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), the project will focus on laser powder bed fusion technology. This process has been selected for its ability to create highly complex lattice and thin-walled structures, considered ideal for aerospace and defence applications.
While these designs offer major advantages in weight savings, stiffness, and efficiency, inspection challenges have slowed their adoption. The ASTRO-led team will pursue in-situ, layer-by-layer inspection of lattice structures, enabling near-real-time flaw detection and deformation prediction during the build process. Their aim is to reduce inspection times from many hours of CT scanning to under one hour, while cutting costs by up to 90%.
“This award will allow us to focus on breaking one of the biggest bottlenecks in metal 3D printing: inspection,” said Dr. Abdalla Nassar, Vice President & General Manager, ASTRO America. “By integrating real-time, layer-wise monitoring with advanced modelling and analysis, our team will deliver a framework that reduces inspection time and cost while giving industry the confidence to scale.”
“Projects like QTIME highlight the invaluable contributions of our members, who steadily advance and mature additive manufacturing,” said Ben DiMarco, Technology Transition Director at America Makes. “We are honoured to collaborate with them and confident that their work will enable future innovations in both in-situ and ex-situ monitoring and inspection, accelerating AM progress across the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, and NASA.”
ASTRO America will oversee component fabrication in Inconel 718 and integrate sensor technologies into a Colibrium Additive M2 Series 5 metal additive manufacturing system. Applications will range from lightweight structural components to advanced heat exchangers, with implications for flight, energy, and naval platforms.
The project will run over a twelve-month technical period, followed by three months of reporting. The findings of the project are set to be commercialised, with mentorship for small businesses also being promised to help integrate the technologies into supply chains that support the U.S. defence industrial base.
Key partners on the project include:
- Applied Optimization (Dayton, OH): High-resolution, melt-pool-scale imaging and predictive stress/distortion modeling
- Penn State Applied Research Lab: Automated CT defect detection and neural-network-based image analysis
- Florida State University: Flaw-informed deformation modeling and translation of composites toolsets to metals
- Colorado School of Mines: Materials characterization and validation of deformation models
- Honeywell Aerospace: Lead system integrator providing geometries, NDE services, and engineering authority
- Lockheed Martin: Advisory support at no cost to the program
