FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Brentwood, TN, May 15, 2025 – The US Navy’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program awarded VEXTEC a Phase I contract to modernize predictive lifing capabilities for components that are subjected to corrosive environments. Currently, the US Navy spends $3-$4 billion/year on corrosion mitigation activities, with a significant portion spent on the premature replacement or repair of components. Predictive technologies that incorporate better understanding of how corrosion mechanisms influence fatigue performance can be utilized to safely gain additional operation life from these components.

In this 6-month Phase I program, VEXTEC will investigate how its commercially available computational software VPS-MICRO^® can be linked to corrosion modeling schemes (pits, surface cracks, and near-surface cracks) for metallic alloys that are of interest to the Navy, and that an integrated cumulative damage growth simulation software tool is feasible for further development in a potential Phase II program. VEXTEC will collaborate with Dr. James Burns, a recognized expert in corrosion fatigue testing and modeling, to understand corrosion’s role in creating surface roughness conditions.

About VEXTEC:

VEXTEC Corporation is the home of VPS-MICRO, a unique microstructural fatigue durability prediction software based on ICME (Integrated Computational Materials Engineering). This technology fills a gap in the existing capabilities provided by CAD/CAM, FEA, statistical modeling, and physical material and component testing, by effectively integrating them into a single computational processing framework. Since 2000, VEXTEC has provided predictive analytics prognostics and life extension capabilities for hundreds of different products. VEXTEC’s clients include leading multinationals in the aerospace, automotive, electronics, energy, heavy industry and medical device manufacturing sectors, as well as many federal government agencies. VEXTEC has seven US patents related to its technology. For more information on VEXTEC and VPS-MICRO software, visit: http://vextec.com.

AFRL and its primary collaborators (ARCTOS, The Barnes Global Advisors) have identified the main challenges in Q&C being:

1. effective/efficient non-destructive inspection techniques;
2. how to handle as-printed surfaces and articulate their debit to performance; and
3. lack of harmony in current Q&C approaches (multiple standards including AWS D20.1, NASA-STD-6033, AMS 7032, AMS 7003, EZ-SB-19-01).

The group has determined that adopting validated defect- and microstructure-inclusive modeling is the path forward to reduce the testing burden. They will explore the benefits of available modeling tools by comparing a “full testing” example to a “reduced testing” example that includes modeling, and demonstrating equivalent confidence between the two approaches. The proposed “reduced testing” example would take advantage of specimen-level testing (which is less expensive and time-consuming) to collect microstructure and defect data to inform the models. These models would then be used to predict equivalent initial damage size (EIDS) distributions and performance for a fully sized and geometrically complex part. Limited physical testing of parts would be used to validate the model-assisted analyses.

VEXTEC’s approach of model-assisted AM qualification aligns seamlessly with AFRL’s objective. Our VPS-MICRO® Software integrates materials science principles with standard structural engineering tools such as finite element analysis to model fatigue performance at the microstructural level, where damage actually occurs. Our tool has been used by both the Department of Defense as well as the private sector to predict the risk of cyclic fatigue failure of AM parts based on location-specific microstructure, defects, residual stress and surface roughness. Last month, VEXTEC was invited to participate in a QUASAR Program Update at AFRL offices in Dayton, Ohio. VEXTEC’s digital tools were highlighted as a means to integrate AM as-printed surface features.

AFRL QUASAR Program

VEXTEC looks forward to continuing our long-standing collaboration efforts with AFRL, and advocating for materials-based computational tools that lower barriers to AM adoption in the aerospace industry.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Brentwood, TN (September 4, 2024) – VEXTEC Corporation was selected by Bechtel Plant Machinery, Inc. (BPMI) to provide its VPS-MICRO Software for virtual testing and prediction of fatigue performance of metallic components, supporting the U.S. Navy. Software training for BPMI personnel has recently been completed, and BPMI’s initial focus will be to use the software to better understand component fatigue related to U.S. Navy mechanical components.

VPS-MICRO gives engineering teams and technical directors quantitative information to make quick decisions on component fatigue reliability and durability, by supplementing physical testing and providing increased confidence in accelerated qualification of parts. The software is compatible with nearly any material processing condition for metallic structural components: forging, casting, weldments, additive manufacturing (AM), surface treatments, etc. Clients have used the software to accelerate the push of AM into standard production and to identify causes of component fatigue failure.

VPS-MICRO, developed with the help of the U.S. government’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, addresses a gap in the existing capabilities of computer-aided design (CAD), finite element analysis (FEA) and physical material testing. VEXTEC’s technology effectively integrates these disciplines with probabilistic modeling into a single computational framework that accounts for material and processing variabilities.

“We are pleased BPMI has purchased a subscription of VPS-MICRO to add to its engineering toolbox,” said Bob Tryon, CEO and President of VEXTEC. “The virtual testing capabilities of our software can augment physical testing, reducing costly iterative testing loops and other resource burdens related to certification protocols. We are committed to fully supporting BPMI in its implementation and use of VPS-MICRO.”

About VEXTEC
Since 2000, VEXTEC Corporation has provided predictive analytics prognostics and life extension capabilities for hundreds of applications and products. VEXTEC’s clients include leading multinationals in the aerospace, automotive, electronics, heavy industry and medical device manufacturing sectors, as well as many federal government agencies. VEXTEC has seven U.S. patents related to its software technology. For more information on VEXTEC and VPS-MICRO software, visit vextec.com.

About Bechtel Plant Machinery, Inc.
Bechtel Plant Machinery, Inc. (BPMI) provides the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program high quality nuclear power plant components for submarines and aircraft carriers. For more information, visit www.bpmionline.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Brentwood, TN, October 10, 2022 – VEXTEC Corporation was awarded a sole source contract from the U.S. Navy to expand its Corrosion Cracking Maintenance Prediction Software (CCMPS). CCMPS is used by the Navy to predict the future maintenance needs for aluminum (5000 series) ship structures.

The U.S. Navy is tasked with extending the lifetime of certain naval vessels by 5-10 years at full mission capability, however, they have been challenged by stress corrosion cracking of their aluminum ship structures which impacts maintenance schedules. That’s where CCMPS comes into play. The Navy uses CCMPS to simulate inspection schedules of their aluminum fleet resulting in a “Time-to-Repair” prediction. This software capability gives the Navy a way to turn actual data in to actionable data which they can use to improve maintenance planning schedules.

Under this contract, VEXTEC will add new capabilities and technology to the software enabling the Navy to continue using CCMPS for years to come. “In the current CCMPS scheme, each ship location of the fleet is simulated individually and the next doesn’t begin until the prior has finished,” said, Dr. Animesh Dey, VEXTEC’s Chief Product Development Officer, “VEXTEC will be implementing a multi-threading method in the software; this will allow multiple locations to be simulated in tandem and compiled at the end once all ship locations of the digital fleet have completed the simulation.” These upgrades will reduce the overall time it takes to run a model benefiting the Navy’s condition-based maintenance needs which is essential to their overall mission.

About VEXTEC:

VEXTEC Corporation works with both federal & commercial clients across many industries to provide fatigue prediction software based on ICME (Integrated Computational Materials Engineering) to predict product durability. This unique software, VPS-MICRO, fills a gap in the existing capabilities provided by CAD/CAM, FEA, statistical modeling, and physical material and component testing by effectively integrating them into a single computational processing framework. VEXTEC has seven US patents related to its technology. For more information on VEXTEC and VPS-MICRO software, visit: http://vextec.com.

VEXTEC provides software and services to predict and improve product durability. Our VPS-MICRO software helps clients virtually qualify their metal components for fatigue durability. It is an Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) tool that simulates fatigue at the microstructural level, where there can be significant variability in additively manufactured (AM) metal parts. Without changing the required elements of the AM certification process, the technology can efficiently simulate what would happen if that part was tested in fatigue. This allows physical testing of the part only after there is high confidence it will pass the test, reducing costly repeats.

The details of an annual subscription for VPS-MICRO software license and support include:

•      Access to VEXTEC’s materials library & knowledge.

•      Complete user training for at least two users–training process will also validate the methodology on the client’s material/design, as training will result in a specific alloy addition to the client’s materials library and the ability for VEXTEC to address almost all potential use cases.

•      Option for floating license with multiple users.

•      VEXTEC ensures that our clients are fully supported in their use and implementation of VPS-MICRO.

Our standard annual software subscription service is priced at $80k. For a limited time, VEXTEC is offering this service at the discounted price of $60k to fellow America Makes members.

About America Makes

America Makes is the nation’s leading public-private partnership for AM technology and education. America Makes members from industry, academia, government, workforce and economic development organizations, work together to accelerate the adoption of AM and the nation’s global manufacturing competitiveness. Founded in 2012 as the Department of Defense’s national manufacturing innovation institute for AM and first of the Manufacturing USA network, America Makes is based in Youngstown, Ohio and managed by the not-for-profit National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM). Visit americamakes.us to learn more.

The work emphasized the fact that metal additive manufacturing techniques produce material microstructures that have such wide variation in properties that they cannot be appropriately modeled by deterministic approaches. Instead, they must be represented probabilistically in order to effectively characterize the nature of AM-processed materials. VPS-MICRO accounts for this variability using probabilistic material models and computationally-efficient simulation.

For more information on these presentations and published proceedings, see the links below:

Aircraft Structural Integrity Program (ASIP) Conference, Dec. 2021: “Fatigue Analysis of Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) Ti-6Al-4V”

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Science and Technology Forum and Exposition (SciTech), Jan. 2022: “Fatigue Analysis of Additive Manufacturing Materials with Microstructural Properties”

Watch the webinar on the America Makes YouTube page

Though AM technologies are varied in their materials and methods, they can be generally described as computer-controlled processes which create three dimensional parts on a layer-by-layer basis. AM’s benefits include the ability to make parts with innovative designs that are lighter and perform more efficiently than parts manufactured by traditional methods like forging, milling, welding and casting. The cost of AM is decreasing continuously, in inverse proportion to its increasing technological maturation. As such, the DOD has been using AM to produce spare parts for aircraft and weapon systems, tools, R&D, and medical supplies like face shields to meet the recent needs of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here, we will be taking a look at the specific goals that the DOD has for AM – specifically, metal AM – and what we at VEXTEC are doing to help the DOD achieve each of these goals. You can jump to a specific section by using the links below.

DOD Overview
Qualification and Certification
The Role of Modeling and Simulation
Integrating in the DOD AM Digital Thread
Summary

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DOD Overview

Over the past decade, individual branches of the military, the Defense Logistics Agency, and field commands have been employing AM to varying degrees. But the recent push within the DOD has been on alignment of broad AM activities at the highest levels to facilitate information exchange, develop best practices, and advance the technology forward. To meet this goal, the DOD published the Department of Defense Additive Manufacturing Strategy document in January 2021. This strategy document sets a common vision for AM and details five strategic goals for implementing the technology:

1. Integrate AM into DOD and the defense industrial base.
2. Align AM activities across DOD and external partners.
3. Advance and promote agile use of AM.
4. Expand proficiency in AM: learn, practice and share knowledge.
5. Secure the AM workflow.

To complement the strategy document, DOD Instruction 5000.93 was published in June 2021. Entitled “Use of Additive Manufacturing in the DOD”, the instruction establishes overall AM policy, roles and responsibilities across the DOD, and provides overarching AM guidance. To further enhance the strategy, military services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) program are collaborating with others in the DOD to develop specific AM plans and detailed technical guidance. The Joint Additive Manufacturing Working Group (JAMWG) comprises representatives of the military services as well as other AM-critical defense agencies within the U.S. Government. An AM Guidebook is slated to be released in 2022, which will be a product of a DOD-formed joint steering committee that has convened this year.

So, what does this all mean for companies interested in AM technology? As the largest buyer of goods and services in the world, the DOD has enormous influence when it comes to the advancement of new technologies. The fact that AM has been targeted by the DOD as a necessary tool to meet current and future needs helps ensure the viability of AM for decades to come. But the devil is always in the details. Overarching guidance documents and broad goals cannot — by themselves — build a certified flight-critical component that will be used in sustainment activities for an aging B-52 bomber fleet, for example. Innovative applications of AM and its supporting technologies will need to be developed in order to meet these ambitious goals.

The DOD is aware that they will not be able to “go it alone” when it comes to AM; they will need the help of industry as well as academia. The America Makes consortium, established in 2012 by the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), represents one of the more prominent cross-disciplinary collaborative engagements. VEXTEC, provider of AM performance prediction software VPS-MICRO®, is a proud Silver Member of America Makes. As VEXTEC has been collaborating with DOD agencies for many years, it was a natural fit to continue this effort within America Makes. Our software and technical services have helped, and continue to help, the DOD adopt and advance AM technology.

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Qualification and Certification

One of the main purposes for the Department of Defense (DOD) to issue their strategy document is to address their primary need for “rapid and standardized approaches for qualification of materials and process, and certification of AM parts.”

It is well-known that one of the biggest potential benefits of AM is the ability to rapidly prototype/build necessary items, and the U.S. Military sees this as having a streamlining effect on their supply chain. In an ideal world, raw printing materials (e.g., feedstock powder for metal AM) can be shipped more economically than completed parts to forward operating locations (termed “field” or “afloat” depending on if they are by land or by sea). Computer Aided Design (CAD) files of necessary parts can be securely transmitted to the proper AM machines, and technicians can assist on the ground as the parts are built. The strategy document provides current examples of the Marine Corps field-printing sensor housings to secure a perimeter gap around a base; the Army printing a low-cost cap to protect a “million-dollar lens” on a tank; the Air Force replacing obsolete parts on the C-5 aircraft at 5% of the original cost.

However, it is not enough to simply be able to rapidly produce “one-off” replacement parts or nonstructural components; these alone cannot justify full investment in AM by the Military Services. The technology needs to be robust enough, and consistent enough, to build structurally-critical components at a repeatable and reliable rate for increased confidence and minimized risk. Field repair units, their designers and technicians, need to know that the AM parts they are replacing in their equipment are functionally equivalent or superior to the legacy/obsolete parts they are removing. If they are not, they need to know the quantified risk that is involved in the replacement. In either case, this is where rapid and standardized approaches for qualification and certification are necessary tools. This is distilled in the DOD strategy document’s Goal 3 – Advance and Promote Agile Use of AM:

3.1 Develop and share new approaches to certification and qualification
3.2 Advance technology to inform design
3.3 Support forward deployment and application of AM in the field

The DOD instruction document assigns the responsibility of facilitating “consistency in AM qualification and certification methodologies across the Military” to the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, the USD(R&E). Also, the Secretaries of the Military Departments and Directors of the Defense Agencies and DOD Field Activities with AM requirements are tasked with providing “oversight to ensure that AM parts comply with organization-level processes and that cognizant authorities complete the appropriate level of qualification, certification, and risk evaluation” and directing “use of consistent qualification and certification criteria and methodologies ensuring that approval authorities take a disciplined risk management approach that provides rapid and competent support to speed up AM efforts across the DOD.” These assignments of responsibilities, and the flow-down of tasks to subordinate levels in the Military, will assist in the adoption of AM.

The strategy document also recognizes that, to achieve the Goal 3, “qualification and certification is a key gap and [an] opportunity for collaboration” between the DOD and the broader AM community. To facilitate this collaboration, the DOD has pledged to engage in technical interchanges with industry and academia with the objective of increasing knowledge.

VEXTEC’s predictive performance software VPS-MICRO aids the current certification process, by allowing engineers the ability to use AM materials and process data to virtually test AM parts. Commercially-available AM machines and in-process monitoring methods can deliver data about what is happening layer-by-layer to create a 3D model of local material properties. VPS-MICRO integrates this data with structural modeling (CAD/Finite Element Analysis [FEA]), simulating what would happen if the component was tested in fatigue. Physical testing would only occur after simulations show there is high confidence that the component would pass this testing. This reduces the number of redesigns and repeat tests, which are one of the largest drains on time, equipment, and man-hour resources during the qualification and certification process.

VEXTEC has been working with the U.S. Air Force and its Rapid Sustainment office (RSO) to develop AM qualification and certification methods with VPS-MICRO as a core element. The fruits of these collaborations have led to delivery and training of VPS-MICRO to engineers at the propulsion sustainment group at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, OK, who are looking to select critical aircraft components for AM replacement.

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The Role of Modeling & Simulation

The DOD has prioritized the implementation of advanced technologies in the deployment of additive manufacturing. These technologies include artificial intelligence, machine learning, and a particular emphasis on modeling and simulation. According to the strategy document, “the Services are currently evaluating Modeling and Simulation (M&S) tools to increase confidence that [printed] structurally-significant metallic parts are reliable and cost effective.” This speaks to the gap that needs to be overcome in the adoption of metal AM by the DOD. Prior uses of metal AM have been limited in scope (rapid prototyping, “one-off” nonstructural components, tooling, etc.). As the military shifts its focus to the ability to print structurally-significant parts, an effective toolset must be developed that leverages M&S capabilities.

VEXTEC’s commercially-available VPS-MICRO simulation software is based in Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME). The software predicts fatigue performance of a component by simulating the cumulative fatigue damage accumulation process across multiple length scales (crack nucleation, small flaw fracture mechanics, and linear elastic fracture mechanics), using mechanistic fatigue damage models. These models use process-structure-property relationships to create input distributions of material parameters. For example: a laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) process to build a certain component geometry with Ti-6Al-4V metal powder will yield certain microstructural characteristics (grains, lack-of-fusion welds, voids, etc.). These characteristics, along with other material parameters, are modeled by VEXTEC as statistical distributions that are then sampled from during component fatigue simulation.

VPS-MICRO is a standalone, Windows-based predictive software. However, it can easily link to other standard M&S tools that design engineers frequently utilize. Finite element analysis (FEA) packages such as ANSYS and Simulia/Abaqus create structural modeling and simulation results for a given component geometry. In fact, VEXTEC maintains developer partnerships with these and other M&S suppliers to ensure interoperability. The high-fidelity distribution of surface area and internal stresses from these structural models can be imported into VPS-MICRO. Specific AM processing characteristics can be modeled in VPS-MICRO as well, including:

• Surface roughness (AM as-built surfaces)
• Residual stress (effects of post-build heat treatment – or lack thereof)
• AM surface layer property differentiation

Integrating all of these modeling capabilities into VPS-MICRO has allowed the software to become a powerful tool for simulated testing of AM components. Rather than the time-consuming process of building/testing of every conceivable AM machine parameter combination, VEXTEC can shorten the design loop by directing engineers to specific component geometry/process/material options that are most likely to pass qualification testing. The following figure provides a snapshot of how VPS-MICRO uses material and structural modeling to simulate fatigue damage in AM components.

The DOD, as part of its AM strategy, recognizes that employing modeling & simulation techniques “will improve development and production of new [AM] capabilities more effectively.” VEXTEC’s VPS-MICRO simulation software has successfully demonstrated its value in recent AM-specific Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) programs with DOD agencies.

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Integrating in the DOD AM Digital Thread

The management of additive manufacturing technologies, data, and other digital information is another important pillar of the DOD AM strategy. The collection and security of all information relating to AM is called the digital thread, and it is a top-of-mind concern for all government and industrial partners involved in AM.

The modern nature of additive manufacturing (using computer files to build components) makes the end-to-end process much different from conventional manufacturing techniques. For example, it is much more laborious to implement casting and forging manufacturing processes, since they involve many more physical steps as opposed to AM. The development of an AM digital thread must have the overarching goal for the resulting system to be simultaneously interoperable as well as secure. To quote the strategy document, “The digital thread…enables the Warfighter by giving tactical units secure access to approved data; a way to share innovative solutions; and the ability to submit ideas back to engineering centers and life cycle managers.” Securing and sustaining the AM digital workflow is a key long-term step for the DOD Services as well as the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD).

VEXTEC has built VPS-MICRO with these goals in mind. The computational workflow of the software, shown below, uses all-digital data inputs (finite element analysis [FEA] files; material characterization and testing data; component surface residual stress and roughness measurements; etc.) and provides simulation outputs digitally as well.

Among its many customizable features, the software features:

• Permissions-based material modeling parameter access: only approved users in the client’s userbase can modify AM material model input data.
• License key flexibility: VEXTEC can issue node-locked licenses in sensitive areas (software would only work on particular machines – they do not have to be networked together), or floating server-level licenses that can be checked-out (by approved members of the client’s userbase).

VPS-MICRO’s interoperability is demonstrated on both the software’s inputs and outputs. On the input side, tailored plug-in scripts are used to collect FEA stress and geometry information from structural models in ANSYS, Abaqus, Nastran and other commercially-available packages; and Microsoft Excel can be used to assist the material model development process (tabular input of mechanical testing data and other input parameters). VPS-MICRO’s simulation outputs can be exported back to Excel for further post-processing and analysis. These features help support DOD’s goal to “promote sharing of AM part life and performance data with original equipment manufacturers to support lifecycle analysis to further improve reliability and sustainability.”

A critical component of the AM digital thread for DOD is the Technical Data Package (TDP), which represents the sum total of “information that define the physical and functional characteristics of a configuration item and its subordinate assemblies, subassemblies, and parts.” A portion of a given item’s TDP is the engineering design data. The more this data can be digitized and secured, the easier it is to maintain, share, sustain, and modify the item if necessary. For AM to be successful to the DOD, its engineering design datasets, workflows, and software must be sufficiently integrated so that designers at a repair depot can effectively transmit build instructions to a forward base that has the proper machines, raw material feedstock, and trained technicians, and there is confidence that reliable parts can be manufactured in the field. VPS-MICRO software has been developed to become a part of this digital thread ecosystem.

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Summary

The Department of Defense has developed an aggressive strategy for integrating metal additive manufacturing into its present and its future. Using modeling and simulation technologies to serve critical AM qualification and certification operations, all within a secure environment, is a bold but achievable goal. We at VEXTEC look forward to continuing our partnership with the DOD, through our VPS-MICRO software and services, to fully capture the potential of metal AM and to make it a truly integrated and validated technology for the Military Services.

These factories are printing test specimens to explore what kinds of properties are possible and then comparing them with conventional parts to identify where new approaches may deliver unexpected improvements. OEMs also leverage additive manufacturing technologies to develop replacement parts when a machine breaks down and to improve uptimes. These and dozens of other real-world applications illustrate how additive manufacturing will transform production as we know it — a key piece of “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” already underway.

Investment in this technology will continue, and 3D printers will increasingly occupy many important roles in solving manufacturing problems. Smaller companies will likely be the most enthusiastic adopters as they look to gain market share by moving faster than their competitors. By printing near-net-shape parts, for example, these companies can achieve a level of volume control not possible through conventional manufacturing. Embracing additive manufacturing currently sets a company apart, but it won’t be long before it, too, becomes conventional.

A Closer Look at the Additive Manufacturing Process

Numerous companies employ 3D printers, but few are fully oriented around additive manufacturing. Their financials and, by extension, their operations still reflect the demands of conventional manufacturing. It is not likely that a dedicated additive manufacturing engineer is in their ranks, and the risk factors used to calculate aspects like warranty outlays are based on the performance of conventionally produced parts.

The situation will change as additive manufacturing gains momentum — particularly as the performance of 3D-printed parts improves — but it’s worth asking why OEMs still treat additive manufacturing applications as supplemental instead of as the centerpiece of the production process.

This happens for a couple of reasons:

• Scalability: Printing a thousand or more parts per day requires the careful provisioning of time, hard-to-source raw materials, and limited space inside 3D printers. Matching existing production quotas doesn’t happen quickly when it’s possible at all. AM can be too expensive in dollars and time compared with bulk-production processes. On top of that, 3D printing at scale creates issues around consistency and quality control — especially with regard to metal fatigue failure. Even if these parts meet internal standards, customers may be unwilling to accept them because of their relative unpredictability.

• Certification: There still aren’t good standards for certifying the quality of these parts, which is an obstacle for industries such as medical or aerospace that have exacting standards. Regardless of the quality of 3D-printed parts, there’s no way for customers to choose these parts confidently without a way to verify that quality. That becomes even more difficult if a part requires post-build treatments (e.g., surface finish, heat treating), which means work outside the printer is needed — and the risk of inconsistency heightens.

VEXTEC’s expertise in computational modeling and simulation provides virtual testing data to supplement AM certification protocols. This virtual certification capability can increase confidence in understanding the actual performance of AM parts in the field. Read more about our applications in AM in our Case Studies page.

For these reasons above, conventional manufacturing doesn’t seamlessly translate into an additive equivalent. Fortunately, that was never the intent. Additive manufacturing isn’t a complete replacement for conventional manufacturing — at least not anytime soon. Rather, it’s a way to address intractable problems in manufacturing, like when the U.S. Air Force replaced a support strap prone to failure with a 3D-printed alternative it could rush into production.

For noncritical parts with minor engineering requirements (e.g., brackets, hatch doors) additive manufacturing is a high-speed, low-cost means of production. The same goes for the tooling components that commonly need replacement on critical machines. Printing them eliminates the need to warehouse thousands of machine parts or contend with extended downtime because of a part’s unavailability — or when the production line itself is down and in need of a long-lead or unsourced part. For a small batch of custom-built parts, whether for an old aircraft or an orthopedic patient, it makes more sense to produce them through additive manufacturing rather than conventional methods.

That being said, manufacturers should never assume that additive manufacturing guarantees an immediate or extensive return on investment (ROI). Each business will have varying points at which additive manufacturing processes become profitable for them — and different applications where it makes sense to deploy 3D printers. To have the most significant impact, business leaders should leverage additive manufacturing strategically instead of attempting to wedge it into existing operations.

As additive manufacturing technologies improve, there will be more opportunities to produce additional complex parts at greater scale with sophisticated finishes printed on. For manufacturers across the board, it’s a question of how — not if — they will use additive manufacturing.

Exploring Business Opportunities in Additive Manufacturing

As an emerging technology that some — but not all manufacturers — use, additive manufacturing provides a key competitive differentiator. It empowers manufacturers with distinct capabilities and a “cutting edge” reputation that can pay dividends, attract investors, and drum up attention during a product launch. The financial benefits of additive manufacturing are available to a larger number of manufacturers, too. In the span of just a few years, the number of materials able to be 3D-printed has doubled to including several types of metal; it’s also now possible to print with multiple materials.

This technology provides no shortage of disruptive potential for innovative manufacturers, though that capability comes with pros and cons. If additive manufacturing reduces the amount of subtractive manufacturing (where parts are “cut out”) necessary, it also reduces material costs and — potentially — the number of different materials necessary. These could lead to significant savings, offsetting the cost of additive manufacturing technologies and maintenance.

The initial machine costs constitute as much as 74% of the total cost of 3D printing a product, and since these are sensitive and mission-critical machines, they require a serious investment in maintenance. They also drastically reduce tooling costs and potentially shorten downtimes, which highlights the financial calculus that goes into exploring business opportunities in additive manufacturing.

As part of that calculus, it’s critical to consider the full spectrum of additive manufacturing technologies, including — but not limited to — 3D printers. Software matters just as much as hardware, and the former can help manufacturers design and build parts in ways that lower costs, raise output, and make it easier to recoup the initial investment in machines in less time.

Software can also help product designers predict how products will perform so they can quickly abandon anything that doesn’t meet standards for considerations like strength or fatigue. If the goal is to build things better, faster, and cheaper — and designers traditionally can only choose two of the three — the right additive manufacturing software in the right hands makes all three attainable.

Additive Manufacturing Issues to Address Early On

Manufacturers that choose to implement (or further implement) additive manufacturing must contend with several details before moving forward, including:

• Available Capital: Capital expenditures available to purchase and maintain the number of printers needed to meet production quotas. Regardless of any cost savings or production boosts these technologies might offer, the upfront investment necessary for precision metal 3D printers, in particular, is a major CAPEX that requires deliberation.

• Supply Chain: Suppliers that make metal alloy powders for 3D printing are, in general, not the suppliers that make metal ingots/billets for conventional manufacturing. Anyone diving into additive manufacturing for the first time will need to seek out new suppliers and rethink material costs in the context of everything they produce.

• Infrastructural Overhaul: The labor force may also require rethinking. As manufacturers come to rely on additive processes, they will need manufacturing engineers, operators, technicians, material and process engineers, and metallurgists familiar with those processes.

It’s easy to assume that CAPEX is the biggest obstacle to additive manufacturing, but supply chain issues and staffing shortages may ultimately prove more difficult to overcome. That’s why it’s important to address these issues early — either during or before acquiring equipment.

Putting in more work upfront pays dividends later, and it pays using today’s most valuable currency — innovation. There are countless additive manufacturing applications available; while some applications will fail, others will exceed expectations and drive value in ways no one anticipated. The manufacturers that are willing to experiment with this technology and accept any associated risk and failure will be the ones that outpace the competition, either by optimizing existing operations or by pioneering game-changing approaches.

To understand how additive manufacturing accelerates innovation in unique ways, consider a process like rapid prototyping. With this new technology, designers can print in-house prototypes instead of outsourcing the work and awaiting the results. That way, designers know almost immediately whether they have a great design, a work in progress, or an eternally flawed concept. The layer-by-layer nature of additive manufacturing encourages out-of-the-box thinking, and building parts from the ground up eliminates the 3D geometrical constraints of machine and casting.

For designers, this creates new opportunities and hurdles. In both cases, however, designers must adopt a completely new way of thinking than the staples of conventional manufacturing. Exciting ideas are bound to emerge.

Getting Started With Additive Manufacturing Applications

Manufacturers eager to embrace additive manufacturing should proceed with cautious optimism. It bears repeating that the initial work done to plan and prepare for the arrival of these technologies has the biggest impact on the eventual results.

Although every factory deploys 3D printers a little differently, there are best practices that apply to all of them. Here are three to prioritize:

1. Build a team. Few, if any, products will be produced entirely through additive manufacturing, and 3D-printed parts will primarily be components used in conventional manufacturing. That means additive manufacturing experts will need to work closely and collaboratively with other production specialists and not be siloed away in a corner of the factory.

Realign personnel so that the team is oriented around manufacturing processes rather than products. Map out the processes involved with creating a given product to identify which ones involve additive manufacturing. Then, build a team of additive manufacturing experts who can step in to administer 3D printers or offer design insights on multiple products. Creating opportunities for teams in conventional and additive manufacturing to cross-pollinate will further encourage innovation and excellence in this space.

2. Make certification a must-have. Questions about quality and consistency present a serious obstacle to additive manufacturing — as they should. Why embrace a technology that only produces inferior products? It’s important to recognize the areas where additive manufacturing can (and can’t) offer something superior to conventional manufacturing.

More importantly, producers must be able to prove that quality through a certification process. It benefits everyone involved to assess the quality of 3D-printed materials objectively and eliminate any concerns about performance or viability. In areas like aerospace, where additive manufacturing’s potential is only surpassed by the need for quality control, certifications will unleash a wave of adoption and new applications.

3. Try virtual prototype testing. Even though product developers have sophisticated design processes in place, bad concepts still make it out of the idea stage. That’s because it’s difficult to identify clear design flaws when something sits flat on a page. Virtual prototype testing brings it into three dimensions and allows designers to explore the product and evaluate its potential early in the process.

If a design is a dead end, it’s apparent immediately instead of months down the line. Virtual prototyping can determine whether something is viable earlier in the product lifecycle — and with far more certainty than existing methods.

A Helping Hand in Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing’s impact on business is hard to overstate but difficult to describe because of how it could affect so many facets of manufacturing. Identifying where and how is up to forward-thinking manufacturers to explore. But rather than going through an exhaustive trial-and-error process to learn where additive manufacturing is best applied, let VEXTEC answer those questions.

With our virtual prototype test software, users can take design files and test whether they’re suitable for different types of additive manufacturing. That way, they don’t overlook the opportunity to leverage 3D printing — or try to force this technology on a design where it’s not appropriate. When designs are appropriate for AM, we offer meaningful virtual certification capabilities that can augment the standard physical verification and validation regimes.

Our software helps anyone excited by the potential of additive manufacturing — or eager to get the jump on competitors through early adoption — make the most of the technology while avoiding common pitfalls.

Don’t just try something new. Hit the ground running with the help of VEXTEC.

BRENTWOOD, Tenn., April 28, 2020—VEXTEC^® Corporation in Nashville, TN, has been awarded a small business innovative research (SBIR) contract, supported by Aerojet Rocketdyne, to develop an additive manufacturing certification framework for Air Force applications, with the objective of accelerating the qualification and adoption process for new additive manufactured materials, augmenting the traditional verification process with a model-informed software tool called VPS-MICRO^®.

The VEXTEC developed software, VPS-MICRO, is an Integrated Computational Material Engineering (ICME) based tool that predicts the risk of cyclic fatigue failure of an additive manufactured metal part based on the location specific microstructure, defects, residual stress and surface roughness. Using the software eliminates unsuccessful design options early in the design processes. Also, the software greatly reduces the test cost and time needed to determine the statistical confidence in the certified lifetime instead of having to acquire a large population of fatigue tests needed to do the same.

“We are leveraging real word data we’ve collected like fatigue strength and microstructure to create a digital model that can be used to predict the critical fatigue failure points of a component and simulate how surface features affect overall component strength,” said Dan Matejczyk,  Materials and Process Engineer,  Aerojet Rocketdyne. “The goal is to have a mix of physical test data combined with virtual data to accelerate the qualification process. Aerojet Rocketdyne will provide years of historical test data and VEXTEC will provide the software modeling capability.”

Rapid and reliable part qualification is necessary for additive manufactured components to realize their potential benefits. However, variability in microstructure and surface features may be significant, and must be managed for assured reliability. This program’s certification framework, methods and tools will assure component performance and reliability while enabling additive manufacturing schedule and cost advantages.

Aerojet Rocketdyne, a leader in additive manufacturing for more than a decade, will support VEXTEC in incorporating the additive manufacturing certification with computational fatigue models into a standard work process.

Jeff Haynes, Additive Manufacturing Program Manager at Aerojet Rocketdyne, noted that “With regard to additive manufacturing, we need to answer questions like: Where does modeling fit into the certification process? What is the best mix of analysis and testing? What are viable near-term solutions and what are the long-term goals for computationally enhanced certification processes that will be useful in the broader aerospace industry to produce highly-reliable parts.”

VEXTEC’s SBIR technology transition plan (STTP) for its current Phase II work involves further maturing of its VPS-MICRO software to a higher Technology Readiness Level (TRL) through validation testing, and working with Aerojet Rocketdyne and the company’s DoD partners. This maturation beyond the Phase II level intends to focus on computational predictive modeling of additive manufactured parts in order to meet the Air Force’s needs in process development, vendor qualification/process control, and airworthiness certification.

“We feel that VEXTEC’s VPS-MICRO: additive manufacturing software can be an integral tool in this effort because it represents the integration of additive manufacturing process modeling with performance prediction to provide a better tool for certification. Having Aerojet Rocketdyne’s keen interest will assure the process will interface with the commercial engineering practice,” noted Dr. Bob Tryon, VEXTEC’s President and CTO.

About Aerojet Rocketdyne:
Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AJRD), is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader that provides propulsion systems and energetics to the space, missile defense and strategic systems, and tactical systems areas, in support of domestic and international customers. For more information, visit www.Rocket.com and www.AerojetRocketdyne.com. Follow Aerojet Rocketdyne and CEO Eileen Drake on Twitter at @AerojetRdyne and @DrakeEileen.

About VEXTEC:

VEXTEC Corporation has a unique microstructural fatigue durability prediction software based on ICME (Integrated Computational Materials Engineering) to predict long-term product durability. This technology fills a gap in the existing capabilities provided by CAD/CAM, FEA, statistical modeling, and physical material and component testing, by effectively integrating them into a single computational processing framework. VEXTEC’s clients include leading multinationals in the aerospace, automotive, electronics, energy, heavy industry and medical device manufacturing sectors, as well as many federal government agencies. VEXTEC has also received several grants from the United States Department of Defense through its Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR/STTR) programs. VEXTEC has been granted seven patents related to its technology.

For more information, visit: https://vextec.com/