NIST Funds a Fluid Power Advanced Manufacturing Consortium

By Brad Bohlmann, CCEFP Sustainability Director

The Regents of the University of Minnesota, in partnership with the National Fluid Power Association (NFPA), the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), the Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power (CCEFP), and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), will launch the Fluid Power Advanced Manufacturing Consortium (FPAMC) to collaborate and address manufacturing challenges in this technology. The launch of the consortium will be funded through a NIST Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMTech Program) grant totaling $413K over two years.

FPAMC’s goal is to create a sustaining industry-led consortium of experts from academia, industry, and government labs to advance fluid power manufacturing in the U.S. through technology road mapping for the next generation of hydraulic and pneumatic fluid power components and systems. In addition, it will explore the use of fluid power as a means to create or improve advanced manufacturing machines and processes. The initial road-mapping event is scheduled for late July at the Georgia Institute of Technology.