Under a new Air Force contract award, Phase3D will apply its real-time, in-situ inspection platform to a new class of high-performance materials for the Department of the Air Force, supporting propulsion, hypersonic, and thermal-protection programs across the Air Force's advanced manufacturing enterprise.
CHICAGO, IL, Phase3D, a leader in real-time, in-situ inspection for metal additive manufacturing (AM), today announced a new contract award from the Department of the Air Force. The award will fund the extension of Phase3D's Fringe Inspection platform, already deployed across aerospace, defense, and industrial manufacturing, into a new and demanding materials class: ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), which are increasingly central to next-generation propulsion, hypersonic, and thermal-protection systems.
Figure 1: Phase3D's Fringe Inspection™ hardware uses calibrated structured-light projection to capture high-resolution 3D heightmaps of a production surface, layer by layer.
A Critical Gap in the Air Force's Advanced Materials Push
The Department of the Air Force is rapidly expanding its use of advanced manufacturing to support agile sustainment, distributed production, and mission readiness, but the lack of deployable, real-time quality assurance tools remains a persistent barrier. That gap is especially acute for CMCs, which offer exceptional thermal resistance, strength-to-weight ratio, and oxidation resistance compared with traditional metal alloys, making them attractive for turbine engines, hypersonic vehicles, and thermal-protection systems. Despite that promise, CMCs remain underutilized across Air Force sustainment and production environments because conventional non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods, developed largely for metals and polymer composites, cannot reliably detect the matrix cracking, fiber pull-out, porosity, and delamination that can occur throughout CMC fabrication.
The most immediate end users for this work are the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Propulsion Directorate (AFLCMC/ROD) and Rapid Sustainment Office (AFLCMC/RSO), along with the Air Force Research Laboratory's Materials and Manufacturing Directorate (AFRL/RX). All three organizations are actively transitioning advanced materials into operational systems and require inspection tools that can be deployed at depots, OEM facilities, and research centers.
Extending a Proven Platform to a New Material System
Fringe Inspection uses structured-light scanning to generate calibrated, repeatable surface heightmaps during production, an approach Phase3D has spent years validating on metal additive manufacturing with partners including NASA, NAVY, and Air Force sustainment depots and the Air Force Research Laboratory. This program adapts that same core technology to CMC manufacturing, where defects can be introduced at nearly every stage, from tape fabrication and ply stacking through autoclave consolidation, pyrolysis, melt infiltration, and final machining. Phase3D will develop material-specific calibration routines, anomaly-classification models, and validation protocols that allow Fringe Inspection to identify surface deformation and defect signatures as CMC parts are built, rather than waiting for post-process CT scanning or destructive sectioning.
Figure 2: Fringe Operator™, Phase3D's digital-twin software, visualizes part quality in real time and gives operators immediate feedback on defect size, shape, and location for every layer.
“Fringe Inspection was built to answer one question in real time: is the part you are building the part you designed?,” said Dr. Niall O’Dowd, Founder and CEO of Phase3D. “We’ve spent years proving that out on metal parts for NASA, the Air Force, and leading aerospace primes. This program lets us ask the same question of a completely different material system, one the Air Force is counting on for the next generation of propulsion and thermal protection, and where the cost of finding a defect after the part is finished is even higher than it is in metal.”
— Dr. Niall O’Dowd, Founder and CEO, Phase3D
Program Objectives and Path to Transition
This Phase I effort will evaluate the feasibility of adapting Fringe Inspection to CMC production environments and identify the stakeholders and end users best positioned to carry the technology forward. Phase3D has already engaged Air Force stakeholders including AFRL, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex (OC-ALC), and Ellsworth Air Force Base through prior work, and will deepen those relationships over the course of the program.
“Ceramic matrix composites are notoriously hard to qualify because so much can go wrong across so many stages, from tape fabrication all the way through infiltration and final machining,” said Applications Engineering Manager, Andrew Holiday. “The industry has been trying to solve that with post-process CT scans and destructive testing, the same approach that used to hold back metal additive manufacturing. Real-time, layer-by-layer visibility is exactly what this material needs, and it is exactly what Fringe Inspection already does.”
— Andrew Holliday, Phase3D
Supporting a Growing Market for Advanced Materials
Industry forecasts estimate the global CMC market will exceed $13.3 billion by 2029, with the cost of poor quality across that market estimated at $1.6 billion to $2.4 billion annually, driven largely by defects discovered late in production. By moving inspection earlier into the manufacturing process, Phase3D expects Fringe Inspection to reduce rework and scrap while accelerating qualification timelines, mirroring results the platform has already delivered across metal AM programs with NASA, NAVY, Air Force, the Department of Energy, and industry leaders in automotive and aerospace sectors. Phase3D anticipates that successful completion of this effort will position the company to serve a growing market for advanced materials inspection, with applications extending beyond defense into commercial aerospace, energy, and industrial ceramics.
About Phase3D
Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Phase3D develops in-situ inspection and qualification technologies that enable real-time quality assurance for metal additive manufacturing. The company’s patented Fringe Inspection and Fringe Qualification products are deployed across aerospace, defense, energy, medical, and industrial manufacturing, partnering with NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Energy, and leading industrial customers worldwide to make additive manufacturing reliable, repeatable, and ready for flight.
Join the Team
Phase3D is currently hiring across all levels, from entry-level engineers to director-level leaders, with multiple opportunities to support this effort directly and to help scale additive manufacturing for the next generation of aerospace, defense, and energy programs. To view open roles, visit https://www.phase-3d.com/pages/careers.
Media Contact
Dr. Niall O’Dowd, Founder & CEO, Phase3D, niall@phase-3d.com
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