Industry Leaders to Advance In-Situ Inspection for Complex 3D-Printed Parts
The Applied Science & Technology Research Organization of America (ASTRO America) has announced its selection as project lead for a $1.66 million award under the Quality Test and Inspection Methods Expediency (QTIME) project call from America Makes and the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM). Funded by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Manufacturing Technology Office (OSD ManTech), the initiative will accelerate the adoption of metal additive manufacturing (AM) by advancing rapid, cost-effective inspection and qualification methods for complex 3D-printed parts.
“Projects like QTIME highlight the invaluable contributions of our members, who steadily advance and mature additive manufacturing,” said Ben DiMarco, Technology Transition Director at America Makes. “We are honored to collaborate with them and confident that their work will enable future innovations in both in-situ and ex-situ monitoring and inspection, accelerating AM progress across the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, and NASA.”
ASTRO’s project focuses on laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) – a process capable of creating highly complex lattice and thin-walled structures ideal for aerospace and defense applications. While these designs offer major advantages in weight savings, stiffness, and efficiency, inspection challenges have slowed their adoption.
“This award will allow us to focus on breaking one of the biggest bottlenecks in metal 3D printing: inspection,” said Dr. Abdalla Nassar, Vice President & General Manager, ASTRO America. “By integrating real-time, layer-wise monitoring with advanced modeling and analysis, our team will deliver a framework that reduces inspection time and cost while giving industry the confidence to scale.”
In-Situ, Layer-by-Layer Inspection
The ASTRO-led team will pursue in-situ, layer-by-layer inspection of lattice structures, enabling near-real-time flaw detection and deformation prediction during the build process. If successful, the approach will reduce inspection times from many hours of CT scanning to under one hour, while cutting costs by up to 90%.
ASTRO America will oversee component fabrication in Inconel 718 and integrate sensor technologies into a commercial LPBF system (Colibrium M2 Series 5). The project will run over a twelve-month technical period, followed by three months of reporting.
Key partners include:
Applied Optimization (Dayton, OH): High-resolution, melt-pool-scale imaging and predictive stress/distortion modeling
Penn State Applied Research Lab: Automated CT defect detection and neural-network-based image analysis
Florida State University: Flaw-informed deformation modeling and translation of composites toolsets to metals
Colorado School of Mines: Materials characterization and validation of deformation models
Honeywell Aerospace: Lead system integrator providing geometries, NDE services, and engineering authority
Lockheed Martin: Advisory support at no cost to the program
By addressing a critical barrier to adoption, the program will pave the way for confident use of complex lattice designs across defense and aerospace. Applications range from lightweight structural components to advanced heat exchangers, with implications for flight, energy, and naval platforms.
ASTRO and its partners are also committed to ensuring the project’s findings are commercialized, including mentorship for small businesses to help them integrate these technologies into supply chains that support the U.S. defense industrial base.
For more information: www.astroa.org
