STTR DON27TZ02-NV013 (Navy): Computational Frameworks for the Development and Qualification of Additive Manufacturing-Tailored Wire Feedstock for Naval Directed Energy Deposition

About this opportunity

Navy STTR topic — Accepting submissions 2026-12-02 to 2027-01-06. As the Department of the Navy prepares for contested logistics environments, the ability to manufacture large, mission-critical replacement parts at the point of need has become a strategic imperative. Wire-fed DED is uniquely suited to this role: it operates safely with reactive metal alloys, achieves high deposition rates for large structural volumes, and is robust enough for shipboard and expeditionary deployment. Despite this operational advantage, a persistent and quantifiable performance gap prevents wire DED parts from meeting Navy structural qualification standards without extensive post-processing. The root cause of this gap is a thermal physics and geometric mismatch. Additive manufacturing (AM) processes span app...