Description: Reliability in extreme environments is a critical challenge to realizing part consolidation and rapid manufacturing electronics and multi-material components in space vehicles. Meeting this challenge will greatly increase the performance, lifetime, and reliability of NASA exploration vehicles. Reducing existing tooling costs will ensure systems are commercially viable and thereby available for future NASA and government needs. Engeniusmicro (EGM) and Alabama A&M University (AAMU) propose to develop additive manufacturing materials, tooling, and DFAM for multi-material electronics and sensor structures. The team will down-select commercially available additive materials based known past performance in similar environments and based on new simulations of expected performance. The team will develop additive manufacturing processes specific for down-selected materials in single- and multi-material test coupons. Coupons will be tested for relevant mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties. Results of the material study will define process and design rules for future prototypes. The STTR will further develop EngeniusMicro's hybrid additive manufacturing tooling and software for the new material characteristics. The hybrid tooling includes multi-material and multi-process additive manufacturing heads, milling spindle, surface treatment tools. The control software will integrate process and design rules into DFAM procedure to output unified machine codes and process flows. The system will be a compact, affordable system with 50 µm resolution.

Benefits: Additive manufacturing (AM) has significant economic and time-value benefits for low-production, specialized systems operating in austere environments. Prototyping and low-volume production typically falls below AM volume thresholds, where toolless, digital fabrication has reduced costs by 78% and lead times by 83% compared to traditional manufacturing (TM). Also, complex parts (e.g., embedded sensing and active structures) exceed TM complexity thresholds where specialized TM is costly or impossible. Volume and complexity economics combine for additional savings through part consolidation in normal use cases. But for NASA part consolidation reduces volume and weight for additional launch savings and capabilities. AM further benefits NASA development by accelerating prototyping to reduce costs and time through rapid iteration and testing of functional components. These benefits are particularly attractive in additive manufacturing of electronics (AME) because of system complexity, mixed materials, and assembly with low production volume. Engeniusmicro and Alabama A&M University propose to study material feasibility, multi-material compatibility, and design for additive manufacturing (DFAM) tools to mature AME for extreme cold environments. Engeniusmicro is developing a compact, affordable, and easy-to-use multi-material printing capability that is capable of electronics material deposition and non-printing machining processes. The tool itself will meet small-business, university lab, research lab, and high-end consumer needs for reduced costs and rapid prototyping. The tooling capability can be affordably scaled into print farms to increase production volume. The software consolidates many design and machine preparation tasks into an intuitive interface with visibility and control into critical process decisions. As the hardware and software develop, the tool will become affordable to consumers with tooling prices on the order of existing high-end home systems. Commercial applications include on-demand custom packages for rapid delivery of semiconductor packaging. Our unique tools, automation, and processes for rapid multi-material printing of buried conductors, vias, and ceramics enable production of custom chip carriers a fraction of the cost and lead-time of traditional chip carriers.