Companies specializing in one of the fastest growing metal-forming technologies, metal additive manufacturing (AM), have formed the Association for Metal Additive Manufacturing (AMAM). Housed underneath the Metal Powder Industries Federation, the world’s leading trade organization serving the interests of the metal powder producing and consuming industries, AMAM is composed of companies that wish to lead the direction of the metal AM industry.
Registration has opened for MIM2018: International Conference on Injection Molding of Metals, Ceramics and Carbides—the only international powder and metal injection molding conference of the year. To be held March 5–7, 2018, MIM2018 is a global conference and tabletop exhibition that highlights advances in the powder injection molding (PIM) industry. The conference will take place in Irvine, California, at the Hotel Irvine.
Two Manufacturing USA institutes, The Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI) and Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow (LIFT) unveiled a new facility in Detroit, Mich., which houses LIFT headquarters and the IACMI Vehicles Scale-Up Facility, the research and development hub for the IACMI Vehicles Technology Area. This event capped a near $50 million investment in world-class manufacturing equipment and improvements to the facility, recognizing the future of innovative research in both composites and metals to be done there.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory has received $392,000 in funding to commercialize a gas-atomization nozzle design used to produce metal powders for manufacturing. The funding is part of the DOE’s Office of Technology Transition’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) announced recently by U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. The funding, totaling $19.7 million, will support 54 projects across 12 National Laboratories involving more than 30 private sector partners, and will help businesses move promising energy technologies from National Laboratories to the marketplace. In addition, Ames Lab will contribute in-kind matching funds of equal value for the project from private sector partner Ampal, Inc., Palmerton, Pa., a part of the United States Metal Powders group of companies.