Elementum 3D, a Colorado-based developer and provider of metallic powders utilized in additive manufacturing (AM), introduced that the corporate has been added to the distributors record within the fourth on-ramp of the US Air Pressure’s $46 billion Enterprise-Extensive Agile Acquisition Contract (EWAAC). In September, 2021, the Air Pressure Life Cycle Administration Heart at Florida’s Eglin Air Pressure Base (AFB) named the primary 55 awardees to the EWAAC distributors record, in an Indefinite Supply, Indefinite Amount (IDIQ) contract anticipated to final by way of 2031.
Because the title implies, IDIQ contracts are utilized by the federal authorities in circumstances the place the precise parameters of its wants for sure items and/or providers — by way of each quantities and supply deadlines — aren’t but recognized. The particular objective of the EWAAC is to speed up the processes by which the Air Pressure acquires “revolutionary weapons programs”.
Particularly, the EWAAC initiative is concentrated on implementing digital acquisition processes. Together with Elementum 3D, 122 distributors had been added to the EWAAC portal on this newest on-ramp, with the distributors record now totaling virtually 300 names.
Warmth sink.
In a press launch about Elementum 3D’s addition to the distributors record for the Air Pressure’s EWAAC contract, the CEO and founding father of Elementum 3D, Dr. Jacob Nuechterlein, stated, “The Elementum 3D workforce is able to develop revolutionary capabilities that align with the nation’s protection wants. Our historical past runs deep with the US Air Pressure, and we’re honored to be a part of this contract in assist of the US armed forces.”
Software testing of A6061-RAM2 for PBF-LB AM.
A few of Elementum 3D’s most up-to-date work with the US Air Pressure consists of a fabric characterization settlement surrounding specialised aluminum alloys for powder mattress fusion (PBF), in addition to an SBIR Section I contract from Air Pressure innovation accelerator AFWERX for R&D into “permeable AM”. Elementum’s patented Reactive AM (RAM) course of makes use of sub-micron ceramic reinforcements to allow the creation of printed parts with properties that carefully resemble conventionally manufactured counterparts.
From any angle, Elementum 3D’s addition to the EWAAC distributors record is spectacular, however it’s particularly spectacular insofar as, at the moment, the corporate seems to be the one metallic powders specialist on the record. However there are a lot of different acquainted names to the AM world discovered amongst the 297 within the EWAAC portal, together with Ursa Main, Firestorm Labs, and Divergent.
The addition of a metallic powder provider would appear to counsel that the Air Pressure is anticipating elevated demand for powder-based AM components. If we are able to draw assumptions from the AM-relevant names on the EWAAC record — together with what the Air Pressure and DoD have been signaling, extra broadly — propulsion options and drones are the almost certainly drivers for such elevated demand.
With all that in thoughts, as large as it’s, in-and-of-itself, the EWAAC contract ought to have long-term implications far past its personal boundaries. Given how shortly the DoD’s procurement wants are altering these days, IDIQ might in the end change into the routine means the company does enterprise, and that may be a state-of-affairs that might require a digital acquisition ecosystem to be the muse round which the remainder of the long run protection industrial base is constructed. 3D printed drones and rocket engines are a perfect start line for testing the validity of that idea. Ultimately, the EWAAC can function a mechanism to progressively incorporate the idea into the workings of the DoD at giant.
Photographs courtesy of Elementum 3D
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