America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) have published a Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing (Version 1.0).
This follows a year’s work by the America Makes & ANSI Additive Manufacturing Standardization Collaborative (AMSC), a group specifically established to coordinate and accelerate the development of industry-wide additive manufacturing (AM) standards and specifications. Federal agencies, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Department of Defense (DoD), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and others, as well as several standards development organizations (SDOs), were also consulted.
The roadmap provides a snapshot of the current AM standards landscape and identifies 89 ‘gaps’, 19 of them high priority, where no published standard or specification currently exists to address a particular industry need. In 58 of those cases, additional research and development (R&D) needs are identified. The document lists relevant standards or standards under development that relate to the issues discussed and includes recommendations for priority areas where there is a perceived need for additional standardization activity. Topical areas include standards for design, process and materials (subdivided into precursor materials, process control, post-processing, and finished material properties), qualification and certification, non-destructive evaluation, and maintenance.
Significant milestone
‘The publication of the AMSC roadmap represents a significant milestone for the AM community, one that will help to advance the growth of the industry,’ said Ed Morris, vice president and director of America Makes.
‘We now need the industry and the standards developing organizations involved in this space to come together, adopt the recommendations set forth in the roadmap, and work to achieve a coherent and coordinated suite of standards and specifications for AM,’ added AMSC chair Jim Williams, president of All Points Additive. ‘America Makes and ANSI plan to continue to further this dialogue.’
The roadmap is supplemented by the AMSC Standards Landscape, a list of standards that are directly or peripherally related to the issues described in the roadmap. Both documents and additional information are available on the AMSC website here.
This story uses material from America Makes, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
