ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | SEPTEMBER 2025 13 UNDERSTANDING THE MDF PARTNERSHIP MODEL MDF uses a public-private partnership model and works at the pace of industry to accelerate the journey from concept to commercialization. In this model, MDF acts as a two-way portal: continuously taking in industry feedback on trends and challenges, while strategically channeling national laboratory expertise and resources toward solutions for real-world needs. MDF’s core program focuses on early-stage research and development, pushing concepts from low to medium technology readiness levels. This approach might involve designing early iterations of a new manufacturing process or pursuing fundamental discoveries about material properties. MDF researchers tap ORNL expertise across a range of disciplines, including material synthesis, metrology and characterization, process technology, modeling, automation, and machine learning. They also leverage DOE Office of Science user facilities at ORNL, such as the Spallation Neutron Source and the Oak Ridge Leadership Com- puting Facility. MDF engages industry partners to further improve, scale, and deploy promising technologies. Through the Technical Collaboration Program, researchers from MDF and a partner company work as a team on a shortterm, fast-paced project. Each project is designed to benefit both the partner company and American industry more broadly. The research team leverages both partners’ core expertise as well as shared project costs. Some partner companies send employees to work at MDF for the duration of a project. Since 2012, MDF has executed more than 280 collaborative projects with industry. Partners represent the entire manufacturing supply chain, from materials and parts suppliers to original equipment manufacturers to end users. They range from Fortune 100 companies to entrepreneurs. In fact, more than 20 start-ups have launched their companies based on manufac- turing technologies developed at ORNL. To incentivize innovation, industry partners retain rights to intellectual property they develop during these projects. They can also exclusively license intellectual property that ORNL develops during the collaboration. More than 400 of ORNL’s granted patents and applications as well as 78 licensed technologies and counting have originated at MDF. CREATING A VIBRANT NETWORK AND ECONOMY MDF’s influence extends beyond individual collaborations to a nation- wide advanced manufacturing consortium. MDF cultivates its network to bring together industry, academia, and government to address large-scale challenges, like bolstering existing supply chains and building new ones around novel technologies. Within this network, companies have access to more—and more convenient—pathways through which to network, collaborate, and help train the next-generation workforce. MDF leaders are particularly focused on bringing small and medium enterprises into the network to help them succeed more rapidly, in terms of both technical progress and economic growth. MDF is a physical hub for the consortium. The Knoxville facility is a day’s drive from 65% of the U.S. population and roughly two-thirds of its manufacturing base. Each year, the facility receives more than 5000 visitors representing more than 1000 unique entities. At this time, about half the equipment at MDF is supplied and owned by industry partners, which provides them with machine and application development, as well as exposure to potential suppliers and customers that visit the facility. Across the network, MDF partners have generated more than $5.5 billion of economic impact in the form of private industry investment. MDF is working with universities and other national laboratories to replicate this impactful engagement model to catalyze further economic and industry growth around the country. The following case studies demonstrate how MDF is empowering innovation and impact inside American manufacturing. DEMONSTRATING IMPACT: ORNL LAUNCHES BIG AREA ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY A little over a decade ago, additive manufacturing processes were widely limited by relatively slow printing rates, a narrow range of source materials, and the small size of products that could be printed. From MDF’s beginning, researchers sought to change that paradigm and unlock the ability to produce significantly larger parts, quickly and efficiently. In 2014, MDF partnered with machine tool manufacturer Cincinnati Inc. to develop the first big area additive manufacturing (BAAM) system, which produced ready-for-use parts 15 times larger than the leading commercial system at the time. The research team designed BAAM to use pelletized extrusion techniques rather than polymer wire, which increased print speed 1000-fold and reduced production costs by 99%. Cincinnati Inc. quickly transitioned BAAM technology to the commercial market and sold four BAAM machines within a year. During subsequent research, MDF leveraged its network to collaborate with more than 30 materials, equipment, and contract manufacturers to enable multi-material printing, develop more than 100 polymer and composite formulations, and scale up to printing structures the size of a small house. BAAM’s success enabled the creation of a new large-scale polymer additive manufacturing (LSAM) industry— which led to more than $600 million in investments from MDF partners alone—and continues to fuel U.S. leader- ship in the global LSAM market. The overall effect is incalculable: entrepreneurs have launched new businesses around BAAM, and the technology has been adopted, adapted, or otherwise benefited companies in numerous sectors.
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