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QuesTek Innovations Triumphs in AM Bench 2025

QuesTek Innovations, a pioneering leader in simulation-driven materials engineering, recently distinguished itself by winning first place in the AM Bench 2025 competition. This event, driven by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is designed to validate modeling capabilities against rigorous experimental data. QuesTek's success centers on its proficiency in predicting how phases transform during the laser melting process of Fe-Cr-Ni alloys, materials crucial for the additive manufacturing (AM) sector.

The AM Bench initiative plays a vital role within the AM industry, fostering advancements by providing benchmark measurements. This program is fundamental for companies and research organizations that depend on computational models for material and process development. The 2025 competition, held in conjunction with the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, spotlighted the importance of testing simulations using reliable and independent datasets.

Jason Sebastian, Executive Vice President at QuesTek, articulated the significance of this win: "It reflects more than just our technical accuracy; it underscores where the materials engineering field is heading. The industry is transitioning toward a future where both materials and processes are digitally validated before actual production. Our performance in this benchmark exemplifies QuesTek’s role as a leader in this transition, providing industries with a reliable and accelerated pathway from design to qualification."

Significance of the Challenge

The AM Bench 2025 competition focused on accurately predicting the sequence of phases that occur during the rapid solidification of Fe-Cr-Ni alloys, featuring different chromium to nickel ratios. These alloys serve as a representative example for many stainless steels, making them particularly relevant in the AM context, where significant thermal cycles affect phase evolution in a way that differs from traditional manufacturing processes.

Utilizing sophisticated solidification microstructure models, QuesTek implemented its proprietary Materials by Design® technology, which streamlines the development of alloys and processing techniques tailored for AM. This technological suite has recently been enhanced to support even better designs suited for AM applications.

This impressive achievement marks QuesTek’s second consecutive victory at AM Bench, further solidifying the maturity of its modeling capabilities and its expanding collection of tools targeting additive manufacturing.

About QuesTek Innovations

QuesTek is recognized for its Materials by Design® approach, which combined with its ICMD® software platform, successfully reduces both the time and costs associated with developing novel materials while simultaneously enhancing performance. Far ahead of traditional and purely algorithmic methods, QuesTek models the entire lifecycle from design through production and certification, dramatically cutting down the timeline involved in these processes. Fast Company acknowledged QuesTek as one of the Most Innovative Companies in 2025.

For further information on QuesTek and its innovative materials engineering solutions, visit questek.com or reach out to Andrea Metzler, the Marketing Director, at [email protected]