Criticalnugz, I wish that I could be a fly on the wall at some of those Honeywell/DARPA ICME meetings. The whole ICME thing got me to start investing more funds along the slightly over three years that I've been invested in SGLB. I considered this to be a huge validation of their IPQA.
Here are a few of my reasons for this consideration.
2) The establishment of the Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation (LM3I) Institute as part of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI). The intent of the LM3I Institute is to bring together materials designers, materials suppliers, product designers, and manufacturers to collaborate on the design, production, and commercialization of affordable, manufacturable, lightweight systems. Guess who is leading the LM3I?? Our friends EWI and of course they are utilizing ICME. https://ewi.org/ewi-to-lead-new-national-lightweighting-institute-in-michigan/
EWI is dedicated to the development and advancement of materials joining and manufacturing technology, however they have become one of the leading researchers into metal additive manufacturing applications and processes in the country. They hope to develop a 3D printing quality certification that can be implemented industry wide.
The challenge is to determine how multiple sources of uncertainties are propagated in a model developed specifically for an AM process, such as in reference [2], and then how to quantify the uncertainty of the resulting material properties and microstructure to predict desired performance in probabilistic terms. Keeping this challenge in mind, the topic requires: a comprehensive approach [3] to quantify the uncertainties of material and process model parameters; recommendations on minimizing both material and process uncertainties in production; and suggestions for acceptance metrics/criteria and tolerances for decision making.
One approach could be the use of physics based models or ICME tools to run simulations of the AM process to narrow down the uncertainty.
One approach could be the use of physics based models or ICME tools to run simulations of the AM process to narrow down the uncertainty.
PHASE II: Further develop and finalize the concept, processing methodology and/or tool from Phase I for metallic materials relevant to naval aviation. Design and perform experiments to validate the approach and to quantify uncertainty in standard test methods for determining material and process characteristics. Develop an uncertainty analysis method to assess the impact of parameter/model uncertainties on the output of metallic AM parts certification approach.
PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Deliver a capability to provide rapid uncertainty quantification for the mechanical performance of a broad range of additively manufactured metallic parts. These new approaches can be used to accelerate the FAA certification process as well as the NAVAIR process. Fast uncertainty quantification will promote a wider acceptance of AM technology within both the military and commercial sector.
In order to enable rapid qualification, Honeywell is developing a holistic risk based probabilistic framework that relies significantly on ICME models to optimize process to design intent and mitigate risk by incorporating process monitoring and IPQA. A high level schematic of the probabilistic framework is shown below in Figure 16. It integrates an ICME framework for predicting material properties based on processing parameters, with design and lifing models.
In addition to the R&D work mentioned above, there are many active investments by various industries for utilization of AM parts to capitalize on the value-added properties provided by AM as shown in Fig. 4, which highlights some industrial examples for AM parts. In particular, General Electric (GE) has received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification for fuel nozzle implementation in the GE LEAP engine, and GE Aviation will produce more than 100,000 3D-printed parts via laser-based powder bed AM by the close of this decade. In this case, AM reduced the total part count and replaced more complex brazing of multiple components to create a lighter, simpler, and more durable product. Other components are also being considered for potential replacement such as brackets Most recently, America Makes co-sponsored an event51 to help coordinate U.S. standards development activities for AM. Key standards developing organizations (SDOs), including ASTM, SAE, ASME, SME, AWS, etc., along with a number of OEMs, gathered to discuss and facilitate collaborative efforts with the goal of initiating a dialogue on joint standards development for AM. These activities are being viewed as one mechanism that can facilitate product qualification and certification. For example, aero engine parts could be certified by FAA while biomedical parts could be certified by FDA. The overarching goal of these coordination efforts is to produce a roadmap that will minimize the amount of overlap activities across the various standardization organizations. The qualification procedure prescribed in AMS4999A is a classic example of statistically-based qualification, wherein the uncertainty in the production of a particular component is understood and mitigated by massive upfront testing, followed by ongoing quality control testing during production. It is very similar to the procedure that has long been used for aerospace castings,79 where any other than very minor deviation from the qualified procedure triggers a re-qualification process. While such a procedure is suitable for serial production of numerous identical parts (such as the fuel nozzle mentioned above), it represents a high barrier for production of customized, repair, and low-volume components where AM techniques are often most desirable, and demonstrates a clear need for holistic, ICME-based qualification schemes that encompass pre-process, in-process, and post-process data to facilitate demonstration of part suitability according to a “qualify as you go” paradigm.80 This article is provided as an attempt to capture an overview of the various challenges to be considered in the qualification of metal AM. These include the need for various modeling and experimental activities, along with the integration of such efforts at the size and length scales relevant for intended applications. In addition, a proposed example of multi-organization collaboration towards addressing some of the qualification challenges was demonstrated via an implementation of an ICME approach via BigData analytics and cloud computing.
Ford invested $15 million over five years in this ICME experiment, which involved 15 of its own engineers and 10 university researchers. So far, the company estimates that it has generated cost savings of more than $120 million—a 700 percent return on investment—while development times have been cut by 15 to 25 percent.
I am very confident that IPQA is built into the ICME framework as the DARPA Phase II ended successfully and SGLB is preparing for Phase 3. I think our involvement with Honeywell on the DARPA Open Manufacturing project definitely had something to do with changing our Deform to Contour. The point is that there is a heck of a lot of collaboration going on in industry to develop the blueprint to move AM from prototyping to production and ICME appears to be the framework. I believe that IPQA is smack in the middle of this collaboration and once the blueprint is finalized then PrintRite3D will sell Big Time as industry moves to AM production of critical metal parts. Good Luck Longs!
