The inaugural Additive Manufacturing Benchmarks (AM-Bench) event was held last month (June 18-21) at the headquarters of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) near Washington, D.C. The benchmark tests are a set of ongoing experiments, designed to enable modelers to evaluate and compare their simulations with rigorously-accumulated physical data. These activities will greatly help the AM industry as a whole, by helping to define a path for widespread adoption of these manufacturing methods. I was privileged to represent VEXTEC at the event, where we were both a main sponsor and a technical contributor.
Our presentation on June 19 was entitled “Integrated Computational Materials Engineering to Quantify the Effect of Uncertainty in Microstructure on the Fatigue Performance of Additively Manufactured Parts”. The researchers (both in metals and polymers) presented on Benchmark Class 1 testing, which focuses on modeling the AM process parameters and the resultant microstructural and mechanical properties. VEXTEC’s simulation software VPS-MICRO® extends the simulation to the in-service durability of metallic components. The upcoming Benchmark Class 3 testing’s objective aligns with our software’s capabilities, so we are excited to
see the near-future needs of AM designers and modelers being addressed by our technology!
It was great to meet with so many people collaborating to make AM more viable in the future. As VEXTEC is based in Nashville, Tennessee, I also distributed nearly 250 treats from a local Nashville candy company: the infamous GooGoo cluster! If you haven’t had the pleasure of trying one of these, make your way to Nashville and I’ll personally buy one for you…they’re THAT good.
My thanks to NIST as well as The Minerals Metals & Materials Society (TMS) for their hosting and organization of the week-long event.
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