EVANSTON, Ill. and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- QuesTek Innovations, a leader in simulation-based materials design and engineering, has been awarded first place in the AM Bench 2025 modeling competition for CHAL-AMB2025-08: Phase Transformation Sequence. This award recognizes the company's ability to accurately predict how phases evolve during laser melting of Fe-Cr-Ni alloys, materials widely used in metal additive manufacturing (AM).

AM Bench is a NIST-led program that provides high-fidelity benchmark measurements and challenge problems that allow modelers to validate simulations against rigorous experimental data. The 2025 program was held in conjunction with ASME's International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE), where winners were announced during a special awards dinner.

Challenges like AM Bench play an essential role in advancing the AM industry. As companies and research groups increasingly rely on computer models to guide material and process development, it becomes critical to test those simulations against trusted, independent datasets. AM Bench provides that neutral proving ground. By comparing different modeling approaches against the same measurements, the program helps the community identify what works, understand where improvements are needed, and accelerate the adoption of reliable predictive tools across manufacturing sectors.

"This win reflects more than technical accuracy, it signals where the field is going," said Jason Sebastian, Executive Vice President at QuesTek Innovations. "Additive manufacturing is moving toward a future where materials and processes are digitally validated long before fabrication. Our performance in this benchmark demonstrates that QuesTek's simulation capabilities are helping lead that transition, giving industry a faster and more confident path from concept to qualification."

About the Challenge

The challenge focused on predicting the sequence of phases that form during rapid solidification in Fe-Cr-Ni alloys with different Cr/Ni ratios. These alloys serve as a model system for many stainless steels, and are particularly relevant to AM because the process involves intense heating and cooling cycles that drive phase evolution differently than traditional manufacturing methods.

QuesTek's winning effort utilized solidification microstructure models included in QuesTek's Materials by Design^® technology. The technology suite, embodied in QuesTek's ICMD^® SaaS offering, was recently enhanced to improve support for alloy and process design for additive manufacturing.

This award marks QuesTek's second consecutive win at AM Bench, further validating the maturity of its QuesTek's modeling capabilities and growing portfolio of AM-focused computational tools.

About QuesTek

QuesTek's Materials by Design^® technology and ICMD^® software platform are proven to reduce the development time and cost and increase the performance of novel materials. In its market space, QuesTek is the first provider to execute the full cycle from novel design to production, certification, and flight operations with proprietary materials, in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional, or purely algorithmic methods. Fast Company named QuesTek a 2025 Most Innovative Company. 

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