SATPC0033030 Tab 04 4 SOW.pdf

Statement of Work Cast Aluminum Voxel Face Part Production Process Development, Tooling and Lot Delivery

A. Background/History of Requirement: NASA Ames is conducting a research program involving digital material assemblies for use in mission support applications as part of the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) Game Changing Development (GCD) program. Key to this research is the use of thousands of identical components with high manufacturing production quality. NASA currently uses injection molding for custom geometry with high performance thermoplastic materials. Advancement in the technology leads to investigations regarding the possibility of producing components from metallic materials. Coordinated part design refinement for manufacturing, tooling development, and target production of 500 prototype part units are to be included in this contract. The new process and parts will be used to extend research capabilities and contribute to novel advanced materials and manufacturing technology research.

B. Description of item(s) to be purchased: The items to be purchased are select new die casting tooling parts for aluminum modular lattice structure part production and aluminum parts as capable of being produced from these new tooling parts.

C. Requirements Specifications:

1. Design of Tooling

a) The target process should integrate industrial state-of-the-art aluminum die casting. A goal of this work is to set a benchmark for production speed and cost if the process proves viable.

b) Investigate an aluminum die casting process for the creation of modular lattice parts containing alignment features, fastening features, and robot handling “cross bars”.

c) Modify example proposed part “NASAARC_ARMADAS_DC.stp” provided by the technical POC for manufacturing in aluminum. Recommend geometry changes to example part based on manufacturing process optimization; digital files to be exchanged with technical POC for approval throughout the design process.

d) Design Deliverables: 3D CAD files (native format per a standard CAD package such as Solidworks, Creo, NX, etc. and step files of geometry alone) of tooling profiles, for research use (process analysis) by the technical POC.

2. Production of Tooling

a) Produce die casting tooling system using standard materials and processes, capable of production of at least 10,000 parts.

b) Deliverables: photographs of the completed tooling components. Per standard procedure, NASA will own the components that are unique to the part geometry and will allow storage by the contractor for future work or request that they be transferred to NASA at the end of this work for analysis (e.g. failure analysis) as appropriate to the level of success of the developed process.

3. Parts Production

a. Fabrication of an initial 500 units once process development is complete.

b. Provide process waste material (i.e. pieces of the cast material that are not processed into parts for geometric reasons) for laboratory testing, in a quantity equal to the mass of 10 units per the final design (labeled so that subsequent testing can be correlated to batches of parts).

c. If the process is not successful, provide waste material from process trials for analysis of material and/or process failures (enough examples to demonstrate the variability in the process).

4. Determination of process scalability

a. Analyze volume production potential and provide a written report on expected costs of speed of production at state-of-the-art volumes.

5. Period of Performance: 8 months total for the period of performance