NEXTGEN AERONAUTICS, INC. — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: AF17A-T018

Description

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies covering a broad range of technologies and processes have been under continuous and accelerating development since the 80s. While there are still fundamental hurdles such as low production rates and small sizes, AM holds tremendous promise in terms of revolutionizing manufacturing. Recent trends include direct-printing and incorporating sensors and electronics to obtain multi-functionality and integrating multiple manufacturing processes and heterogeneous materials. NextGen and ASU propose a transformational metal-polymer hybrid additive fabrication approach in which the material and spatial composition of the metal and polymer constituent materials can be designed, executed, and characterized on a voxel-to-voxel basis. At the end of Phase I we would have matured the fabrication processes, fabricated multiple samples and tested their performance, developed analytical and numerical models, and correlated analytical predictions to test results. We expect to achieve a TRL of 3 by the end of Phase I. In a potential Phase II effort we will optimize the fabrication processes, address a broad range of applications and materials, conduct extensive testing in space representative environments and increase the TRL to 6-7. We will also engage with major system integrators and other stakeholders to commercialize the technology in the near-term.