ASTM International UK is set to support manufacturers in shaping standards starting from lower technology readiness levels (TRL) as part of the recently announced DECSAM programme.
DECSAM – Digitally Enabled Competitive & Sustainable Additive Manufacturing – is a four-year programme that is being led by Airbus and has received 38 million GBP in funding. It commenced earlier this year and seeks to make laser powder bed fusion technology more cost-effective, productive and sustainable.
Through this effort, ASTM International is set to work closely with all ten of the other collaborators, with qualification and standards development considered a common thread. ASTM expects to ‘add value’ to the work of the other collaborators once their tasks and work packages are underway.
Yet, increasingly, the organisation is looking to engage collaborators at the earlier stages of such work, with the Aerospace Technology Institute outlining in its latest additive manufacturing strategy that the length of time it takes to achieve qualification is hindering the application of AM in civil aerospace.
The ATI’s additive manufacturing strategy is targeting an order of magnitude growth in the number of flying 3D printed parts in the UK. It has been reported that there were only around ten AM civil aircraft parts flying with UK-based organisations as recently as 2024. While improvements to the cost and capability of additive manufacturing technology are considered key to improving on those figures, so too is a greater efficiency when qualifying parts and processes.
The DECSAM collaborators
DECSAM has been established in a bid to 'tie together the loose ends' of ongoing development work around AM within the civil aerospace sector, with ASTM's role in the programme key to ensuring said developments are not siloed.
Through DECSAM, the 11 collaborators are working to increase confidence in the UK’s additive manufacturing supply chain through a series of work packages. These work packages include further development of technologies like beam shaping and in-situ monitoring, while alloy development and digital thread development will also be covered.
DECSAM will not be commencing the development of any new pieces of technology, but rather further optimising off-the-shelf products. The collaborators will work closely together – all work packages will receive contributions from at least two participants – with the intention of demonstrating an integrated and digitally connected AM supply chain, inclusive of alloy selection, build strategies, post-processing and inspection, by 2028.
The relevant information of this programme will be disseminated to the wider industry in 2028, with ASTM telling TCT that the collaborators hope to make strides on the productivity and economics of additive manufacturing.
To meet this objective, DECSAM participants hope to reduce testing requirements, increase throughput and optimise existing technologies for specific application areas, but key to the outcome will be the development of standards and certification.
ASTM International, therefore, will keep across all ongoing work as part of DECSAM to ensure all development is completed within a certifiable framework. Where possible, the organisation wants to ‘go in early’ to certify companies and the processes, ensuring that they then don’t need to do too much work to retrospectively certify the processes once work is complete.
“A lot of good research and development takes place, but quite often, they won’t necessarily think about standards until they’re at a high TRL, and then they approach us or other standards bodies,” Carl Hauser, Technical Fellow, Metal Additive Manufacturing at Wohlers Associates, Powered by ASTM International, told TCT. “Sometimes, you have to go back over what they’ve done to reformulate it and make sure it’s in a format that can then be translated into something that’s usable from a standard and qualification point of view. By getting into research earlier, we can shape it at that point in time as well as move it forward. You may find you have a slower start, but you accelerate at the end.”
Lauren Ednie, Additive Manufacturing Project Engineer at ASTM International, added: “[Our role is] to act as a bridge between the technology development that's ongoing on the certification and qualification side. We've got tasks covering in-situ monitoring, for example, so how do we look across the partners, what in-situ monitoring techniques have been used, and how can we integrate that back into the certification? We're the key link in the middle.”
