Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory hosted a dedication ceremony of the new Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory – AML, a state-of-the-art collaborative facility situated in the recently expanded Livermore Valley Open Campus (LVOC).
The $10 million, 14,000-square-foot AML is designed to merge LLNL’s science and engineering expertise with academia and industry, creating public-private partnerships that address manufacturing challenges. The AML will house some of the most sophisticated and capable equipment in the field of advanced/additive manufacturing, some of which are not yet commercially available.
Additional resources will include material evaluation and characterization equipment, access to high-performance computing (HPC) modeling and simulation capabilities, and manufacturing systems from several active LLNL research programs. Advances made at the AML will be motivated and accelerated through motivation of dual-purpose applications—both commercial and government products.
These advanced capabilities will help LLNL’s private sector collaborators accelerate innovation and reduce production costs and time, while at the same time positively impacting mission-relevant projects in the energy sector, national security and other applications.
The AML, which currently hosts eight industry partners, features a large 5,000-square-foot wet lab for new process development, 3D printing, materials research, chemical work and other activities. A 5,000-square-foot instrument lab contains industrial-sized manufacturing machines, as well as leading-edge metal 3D-printing research systems and nanomanufacturing capabilities. Bisecting the two labs is a viewing corridor allowing visitors to observe ongoing research. The AML also houses a conference room and shared work areas to stimulate collaborative engagements.
