Professor Veera Sundararaghavan Awarded DARPA SURGE Program to Transform Additive Manufacturing Qualification
Aerospace Engineering Professor recognized for revolutionary additive manufacturing project
Aerospace Engineering Professor recognized for revolutionary additive manufacturing project
Professor Veera Sundararaghavan has been awarded funding under the DARPA Structures Uniquely Resolved to Guarantee Endurance (SURGE) program, an initiative designed to revolutionize the qualification process for additively manufactured (AM) parts. Funded by the DARPA SURGE program, Professor Sundararaghavan’s “Predictive Real-time Intelligence for Metallic Endurance (PRIME)” project will receive up to $10.3 million over four years.
This groundbreaking project aims to move away from the traditional machine-focused approach and instead qualify each individual part at the point of production, leveraging real-time manufacturing data and artificial intelligence. If successful, this shift will enable a new era of distributed manufacturing, allowing critical components to be produced anywhere, on any AM machine, while maintaining performance guarantees.
Under Professor Sundararaghavan’s leadership, this ambitious effort will bring together researchers from the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Texas A&M University, Auburn University, and the University of California, San Diego, along with key industry partners including Addiguru, AlphaStar, and ASTM International. The project will focus on developing a new qualification framework that replaces lengthy and costly calibration processes with advanced in-situ monitoring and predictive analytics, making AM part certification more efficient and scalable.
“This is an exciting moment for the additive manufacturing community,” said Professor Sundararaghavan. “By redefining how we qualify parts, we are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Our goal is to make AM more agile, cost-effective, and reliable, ensuring that critical parts can be manufactured anywhere in the world, at any time, without compromising quality.”
The DARPA SURGE program represents a major step forward in expanding the defense industrial base, particularly in addressing surge production demands. By enabling rapid qualification of AM parts without requiring extensive machine-specific testing, this research will enhance the flexibility and resilience of defense, aerospace and other high-performance manufacturing sectors. Professor Sundararaghavan and his collaborators are set to drive a paradigm shift that could reshape how AM is used for mission-critical applications, unlocking its full potential for next-generation manufacturing.
Learn more about laser powder bed fusion, watch the video below.
Watch video below, showing how defects are detected in this process (from project partner Addiguru).