ASTM International’s Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence Welcomes Strategic Partner NAMIC, Announces First Round of Projects

About a year ago, international standards organization ASTM International announced that it would be setting up an Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence, and began enlisting partners to help launch the center. The most recent partner to be added to the roster is Singapore’s National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC), which will coordinate the center’s R&D and related activities in Asia as well as invest up to $1.5 million in the first two years.

NAMIC’s Managing Director, Dr. Ho Chaw Sing, and ASTM International’s Director of Global Additive Manufacturing Programs, Dr. Mohsen Seifi, signed a Strategic Partnership Statement last week at NAMIC’s Global Additive Manufacturing Summit.

“We are excited to enter into this partnership with ASTM International,” said Dr. Sing. “We look forward to catalyzing crucial research that helps establish technical standards, guiding additive manufacturing into the future for Singapore, Asia, and the entire world. Our investment into the center’s regional-based activities will support implementation of additive manufacturing technologies globally.”

NAMIC is the first organization in Asia to join with ASTM, and its role will be to support R&D and standardization activities that will help drive commercialization of additive manufacturing technologies in sectors such as aerospace, maritime and offshore, logistics and fabrication.

“We are thrilled that NAMIC will be leading the Asia-Pacific’s efforts to drive advancements and innovation in additive manufacturing on a global scale,” said Dr. Seifi. “NAMIC’s leadership in aerospace maintenance, repair, and overhaul, maritime and offshore, and other industries will complement the center’s capabilities, and we are pleased to welcome additional investments in this world-class partnership which will accelerate standardization in this fast-growing field.”

The center’s founding partners are Auburn University, NASA, manufacturing technology innovator EWI, and the UK-based Manufacturing Technology Centre. NAMIC and the US National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) are the first two strategic partners.

Recently, ASTM International also announced its first round of funding to support research that will help advance the development of standards for additive manufacturing. The investment of $300,000 as well as in-kind contributions will help the Center of Excellence partners to address technical information needs.

“We are very fortunate to work with such renowned organizations to leverage their expertise towards standardization in additive manufacturing,” said Oerlikon engineer Matthew Donovan, who chairs the research and innovation group under ASTM International’s additive manufacturing technology committee (F42).

The initial round of projects approved by the committee involve four areas: feedstock, process qualification, post-processing and testing. The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) will research the development of quality assessment standards for metal powders used for additive manufacturing. The research will contribute to a standard guide for evaluating powder quality and recyclability.

NASA will work on developing standard procedures, metrics and requirements to help qualify machines and processes for laser bed fusion, while EWI will research how various surface finishing techniques for additively manufactured products impact performance and structural integrity. This will help standardize surface quality and measurement metrics.

Auburn University will research mechanical testing issues in additive manufacturing to better understand the relationships between the properties of test specimens and the performance of parts. This will contribute to a standard that provides guidance on designing test samples that best represent additively manufactured components. Meanwhile, NIAR will focus on mechanical testing issues surrounding polymers used in 3D printing.

You can learn more about the Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence here.

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