Staff report

The U.S. Department of Defense wants to know how to get the rust out of metals created in the additive manufacturing process. It’s willing to pay $1.3 million for the answer.

America Makes and the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining, based in Youngstown, announced Tuesday a new open project call that is being funded by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Manufacturing Technology Office.

Corrosion of Additive-Tested At Component Scale (CATACS) focuses on two main topic areas, America Makes said in a news release. The participants will demonstrate and validate a framework for evaluating corrosion testing needs and generate data applicable to metal additive manufacturing with similar corrosion performance requirements. Two awards are expected to be given.

“CATACS is about putting real AM hardware to the test in harsh conditions — because corrosion will find the weak points,” said Ben DiMarco, technology transition director at America Makes. “We’re asking proposers to bring their best parts, set a plan to stress them in extreme environments and let the sea attack. That is CATACS.”

America Makes said additive manufacturing is of significant interest to the Department of Defense as it enables rapid, customizable production. However, additive manufacturing (AM) qualification and certification for metal parts remain a barrier because of a lack of widely accepted testing and processing methods, the news release states.

Material properties produced from AM can differ from traditional manufacturing methods, leading to unique corrosion concerns. The CATACS program aims to establish and validate a framework for evaluating AM metal part corrosion testing needs, focusing on representative testing at the component scale in two critical areas: high-temperature environments and thermal management systems.

By addressing these gaps, the CATACS program looks to accelerate the adoption of AM parts in high-performance defense systems by establishing a reliable corrosion testing framework that streamlines certification, strengthening manufacturing readiness, and scaling the defense industrial base.

The request for proposal is separated into two areas.

The first topic covers “Corrosion of AM Components at Elevated Temperatures.”

The successful proposal will demonstrate corrosion performance of AM components requiring elevated temperature capability in representative environments beyond lab air, considering pressure-vessel conditions, fuel-air mixtures, differing surface exposures, and metallurgical interactions with adjacent components.

The second topic, “Corrosion of AM Components for Thermal Management” addresses corrosion performance of metal AM thermal management components. It focuses on interactions between AM microstructures and one or more working fluids under varying thermal conditions across complex geometries and flow channels.

A webinar on the proposal is slated for Oct. 16. To register and for more information, visit https://shorturl.at/nvB2i or call (330) 622-4299.