US Navy NAVAIR awards Colibrium Additive a $31M contract for qualification of 3D printed parts

Colibrium Additive, a GE Aerospace company, has secured a $31M contract from the US Navy NAVAIR organization to accelerate the testing, qualification, and certification of metal additive manufacturing components. The agreement focuses on delivering six specific Material Process Combinations, which include comprehensive datasets regarding the physical and mechanical properties of targeted alloys. This package expands upon existing AlSi7Mg and IN718 datasets to include 17-4PH and 7050-RAM2, while maintaining support for 316L, CoCr, and Ti64. To execute this work, Colibrium Additive will deploy three M-Line systems and one M2 Series 5 printer, alongside their AddWorks service package which provides licensed material characteristic curves and manufacturing instructions.

This contract addresses the critical bottleneck in aerospace additive manufacturing: the lack of standardized, reproducible design allowables for safety-critical components. While hardware capabilities in Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) have advanced, the industry still struggles with the high cost and time required to certify new material-process combinations for flight. By providing validated datasets and fatigue characterization for thin-walled geometries, Colibrium Additive is positioning itself as a vital data-layer provider in the aerospace value chain. This move directly targets the reduction of supply chain risks and the increase of part autonomy for military aviation, moving beyond simple prototyping into high-volume, flight-certified production.

For Colibrium Additive, the immediate priority is the successful characterization of the 17-4PH and 7050-RAM2 alloys to meet NAVAIR's rigorous fatigue life requirements. The integration of the AddWorks service model with the M-Line hardware suite suggests a strategy to lock in long-term users through proprietary, certified data packages. Success will depend on the company's ability to demonstrate that these new material-process combinations can consistently meet the tight tolerances and mechanical reliability required for naval aviation environments.