Arlington, Va. –
The role of additive manufacturing (AM) within the Department of Defense (DOD), particularly within the Navy and Marine Corps, has seen exponential growth in recent years.
Current naval efforts focus on providing AM capabilities to the fleet by methods of innovation initiatives; the establishment of fabrication laboratories (fab labs) such as the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division's (NSWCCD) Manufacturing, Knowledge and Education (MAKE) Lab; and by providing hands-on training to the warfighter. Nonetheless, the request for training in on-demand AM technologies has not ended with the warfighter. It now extends to program officers and key stakeholders in naval technology development.
The NSWCCD Additive Manufacturing Project Office (AMPO), which manages the MAKE Lab (established in 2016), offers training to anyone interested in learning about AM technology. Predictably, many of the trainees have been technical personnel interested in learning how to apply AM in support of their programs, enabling production to run more efficiently. However, future projections of AM integration include all aspects of naval operations from research and development to lifecycle maintenance support, not just production and manufacturing. As such, the AMPO team has been hard at work delivering AM training outside of the warfare center, encouraging a broad spectrum of support and involvement from key stakeholders within each step of the capabilities development process.
The observable benefits of on-demand AM technology for the Navy are its quickness, efficiency and, ultimately, the enhancement of warfighter capabilities. But the technology also provides significant overall cost savings when compared with more traditional forms of manufacturing. The program office's interest in as-needed AM printing capabilities centers on research and development competence, as well as the ability to rapidly prototype designs developed by field activities prior to costly full-scale production and manufacturing.
On Oct. 17 and Oct. 19, with the support of Dr. Jennifer Wolk (program officer, ONR 332), engineers Samuel Pratt and Bryan Kessel (AMPO NSWCCD) provided hands-on training to Office of Naval Research (ONR) program managers in Arlington, Virginia, on their recently installed 3-D printing machine, the Stratasys uPrint SE Plus. The well-attended training included participants primarily from Sea Warfare Weapons (ONR Code 33) and across a wide range of research areas within the department. Wolk expressed to the attendees that on-demand printing is valuable to the program office as it allows for visualization of the concepts and models the field activity is intending to produce, and affords the ability to recommend or make suggestions to work prior to incurring excessive manufacturing costs.
The three-hour training began with a basic overview of AM processes and current technologies. The Carderock engineers then demonstrated proper use, protection and troubleshooting for the uPrint SE Plus. Prior to training, each attendee was tasked with providing their own 3-D CAD designs, which they would print at the end of the training. Many of the attendees had no direct experience with additive manufacturing or 3-D printing machines prior to participating in the training event, but were able to use readily downloadable CAD files from online sources or those developed by their sponsored field activities.
Dr. Michele Anderson, program manager for Electrochemical Materials (ONR Code 33), who attended the training without prior experience in 3-D printing or CAD drawing, expressed great enthusiasm for the ability to personally additively manufacture parts and designs as needed and discussed the utility of AM to the program offices.
"ONR has significant investments in fuel cell systems for unmanned undersea (UUV) and air vehicle (UAV) propulsion, and we have started to apply additive manufacturing methods to develop more capable systems. The Naval Research Laboratory flew a fuel cell stack that incorporated bipolar plates developed using additive manufacturing in the Ion Tiger UAV last year in an ONR-funded program," Anderson said. "Additive manufacturing was an invaluable tool for the rapid prototyping and development of the bipolar plates, which could not have been developed and implemented as quickly using the standard approach."
So, what does the future of AM look like within the Navy? Wolk predicts that due to the rapid growth of the technology, the next generation of manufacturing platforms will all include AM. Current work across the naval enterprise, DOD, standard development organizations and public private partnerships like America Makes - National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute seek to develop, expand and enable integration of additive manufacturing processes and materials for critical applications.
"AM is a developing technology and there is not always exposure to its strengths and limitations, but as our engineering and manufacturing costs become more constrained, additive offers an opportunity to reduce development and lifecycle costs," Pratt said. "It is important to expose program offices to additive to help them understand how it can be used to reduce system development and lifecycle costs and, ultimately, next generation naval capabilities."