NASA / NIST / FAA Technical Interchange Meeting on Computational Materials Approaches for Qualification by Analysis for Aerospace Applications

This report documents the goals, organization and outcomes of a Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) on Computational Materials Approaches for Qualification by Analysis, co-organized by NASA, NIST and the FAA. The TIM was held at NASA Langley Research Center on January 15-16, 2020. Approximately 60 subject matter experts (SMEs) representing 8 aerospace manufacturers, 7 government organizations and 2 universities participated. Expertise of the SMEs spanned the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale from the low-to-mid TRL focus of government laboratories and universities to the high TRL perspective of the regulatory organizations and aerospace manufacturers. During this TIM, the future needs of the government regulators and manufacturers motivated the overall discussion and framed the input given by the participants. Hence, the key objectives of the TIM were to understand existing gaps in model-based, e.g., computational materials, processing and performance predictions for aerospace materials and components and forecast how they can be matured to support material, process and part-level qualification and certification (Q&C). The TIM focused on process-intensive metallic materials technologies, including, but not limited to, additive manufacturing. Participation was roughly evenly divided among the processing and performance tracks, suggesting that both topic areas are generally perceived as being both valuable and requiring additional investment. The output of this TIM may be used by both participating and other organizations, in part, as guidance for future national efforts on maturing computational materials capabilities for use in the Q&C of advanced metallic material systems in aerospace applications.