Selected Projects
LIFT’s projects are driven by our ecosystem to meet the needs of American industry and the U.S. warfighter. From developing new materials, to exploring innovative processes and integrating them into new systems in aerospace, shipbuilding, automotive and defense, LIFT’s projects are collaborative efforts between large and small industry, academia, research organizations and the government all to drive American manufacturing into the future.

Smarter Manufacturing Digital Twin
This project connects materials, processes and systems for optimal systems operation and component production. Including agile processes like Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) and Incremental…

Coatings
An Integrated Database and Computational Models for Corrosion-Resistant Microstructural Design
This project is taking steps to develop an integrated materials property database and computational model to assess localized corrosion susceptibility based on a specification of…

Joining and Assembly
Robust Distortion Control Methods and Implementation for Construction of Lightweight Metallic Structures
The project will develop integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) tools that will accurately predict the distortion associated with the production of representative structural forms, such…

Melt Processing
Developing and Deploying Thin-Wall Ductile Iron Castings for High Volume Production
This project will focus on the manufacturing process development required to bring thin-wall, vertical green sand-molded ductile iron (DI) castings to high volume production.

Melt Processing
Thin-Wall Aluminum Die Casting Development
This project focuses on the development of High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC) technologies for aluminum alloys that are required for producing high quality thin-wall aluminum…

Thermo-Mechanical Processing
Integration of ICME with Legacy and Novel TMP Processing for Assured Properties in Large Titanium Structures
This project focuses on reducing costs and development time for designing and testing titanium components by developing and validating integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) modeling.