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Army explores 3-D printing's future applications for Soldiers, force

Army explores 3-D printing's future applications for Soldiers, force - November 30, 2016

Excerpts:

RDECOM plans to develop additive manufacturing in three phases. Phase one will use additive manufacturing to repair and replace existing parts. Phase two will reduce multipart assemblies from a series of parts to one part.

For example, the receiver on a machine gun is composed of titanium parts that are welded together in a multipart assembly; the goal with additive manufacturing would be to reduce the receiver's cost and its number of parts by printing all of the parts as one piece.

Phase three will use additive manufacturing to create new parts that don't already exist.

"RDECOM envisions [additive manufacturing's] evolution across the Army's acquisition and lifecycle management ecosystem," Davis explained.
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The Army is currently partnering with industry and academia to share information and pool resources to develop new and innovative applications for additive manufacturing. The Army has partnered with GE, for example, and plans to leverage the experience and knowledge of GE researchers in the development of future Army products.

After years of research, GE has developed a way to produce a metal part for the fuel system on its LEAP engine using additive manufacturing, an innovation that will yield 1 to 2 percent higher fuel economy. GE uses the LEAP engine on one of its commercial airliners, and the company now has a dedicated production facility that produces the new part.

ManTech is also working with GE to mature additive manufacturing production for parts on the T700 engine, which is owned by GE and used on the Army's Black Hawk and Apache aircraft. GE hopes to use additive manufacturing to create parts that will reduce engine's weight and improve its efficiency.

"GE will take what it has developed plus what we have incentivized them to develop for Army engines, and then transition that technology and process into the next generation Army engine, which will be beneficial for many decades," Davis said.