SBIR-STTR Award

Challenge: Long lead times, vendors going out of business, and unreliable quality control for advanced materials are creating an unstable supply chain for production of large format components, particularly those made of specialty materials. Large area additive manufacturing has been identified as the ideal way to onshore manufacturing and create a flexible, sustainable supply chain for critical high performance materials. We will Deliver: Upon completion of this Phase I effort, a data package will be delivered that shows statistically confident repeatability for Maraging 250 Steel with tensile strength in excess of 200 ksi tensile strength along with other key attributes including charpy, hardness, microstructure, void fraction, and fatigue testing. Proposal: Develop a physics-based tool for predicting process maps that identify the “sweet spot” for reliably, repeatably, and predictably hitting an ideal set of material properties. Leverage that physics-based framework to demonstrate statistically confident experimental builds of Maraging 250 Steel. Vision/End State: Upon completion of the Phase II effort, Solvus and its partners at MSU and WPI, will be able to optimize the desired path plan for a given part, based on predictions from the physics-based models such that the performance of that part, independent of geometry, is reliable, repeatable, and consistent. Competitive Advantage: Solvus, MSU, and WPI have previously collaborated to develop Maraging 250 Steel capable of achieving >200 ksi tensile strength and >8% elongation. MSU & WPI have pre-built (but not fully integrated together) models for predicting thermal behavior and phase formations for Maraging 250 Steel.

Challenge: Reliable & repeatable production of large format, high performance components that are difficult to source using conventional casting and forging methods. We will Deliver: A physics-based modeling framework that enables reliable and repeatable large-format component-level production of high strength (>200 ksi) Maraging Steel produced via Wire-Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM). Proposal: Solvus Global, Mississippi State University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute will scale the modeling framework deployed in Phase I to account for various geometries and asymmetries present in production of a large format part. This modeling framework will be proven via the fabrication of a full-scale part. Vision/End State: The ability to identify to fabricate any large-format component of Maraging Steel, with minimal process optimization by leveraging the physics-based modeling framework to eliminate unwanted microstructural features and residual stress buildup. This framework will be scalable and deployable to other material systems of interest as part of a Phase 3 effort. Competitive Advantage: The team of Solvus Global, Mississippi State University (MSU), and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has already demonstrated material performance of Maraging 250, and has demonstrated the ability to predict build windows from physics-based models. A proprietary framework of data transfer from experimental to thermal model to microstructural model and back provides the team with the ability to accelerate deployment of new material systems faster than any other group in the world. Furthermore, Solvus Global has all of the necessary infrastructure to immediately enter into production arrangements leveraging the outcomes of this Phase II SBIR. By end of 2022 Solvus Global will have three production-level WAAM cells capable of producing parts up to 20’ and 4000 pounds. Solvus will have the ability to machine parts up to 10’ x 8’, and will have the ability to heat treat parts up to 5’ x 5’.