Large Format Additive Manufacturing to make end use parts for the USAF

A former grocery store in middle Georgia is now serving as Air Force Advanced Technology and Training Center.

The center employs now about 30 people and may eventually employ about 100. This lab is the second one like it in the Air Force. The first one is connected with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

The facility is a satellite operation of Robins Air Force Base. It officially opened Oct. 24, and involves 3D Printing, also called Additive Manufacturing, as a key technology. Previously, 3D Printing had been thought of primarily as something to make prototypes, but now the Air Force is looking at using it to make end use parts.

The inside of the brick building —a former Publix store in Warner Robins— is full of gleaming new futuristic machinery, with large and very large format 3D Printers and 3D Scanners as starrings: In words of Maj. Ben Steffens, “Much of the work that has been done on the base has been done in the same method for years and years. This equipment, this technology, this material that we are dealing with here is cutting edge and will bring us to the next level as far as keeping our schedule down, keeping our cost low.”