RAPID + TCT: Additive Manufacturing with Refractory Metals for Hypersonic Missiles

Refractory alloys have extraordinary resistance to heat and wear. With superior durability, are often the desired material for extreme environment applications such as space craft, missiles, and hypersonic vehicles. Due to the difficulty and high cost associated with manufacturing in complex shape, their utilization has been hampered even in the most demanding applications.

Additive Manufacturing, 3D printing, on the other hands has demonstrated a superior shape producing capability that is unattainable with traditional manufacturing processes. Develop and mature 3D printing of refractory metal alloys would greatly enhance the extreme environment product’s performance and lowering the cost.

In the NASA and private industry collaborative research and development work, to be presented at RAPID+TCT, successful 3D printing of high-quality Niobium C103 alloy components have been demonstrated and hot fire tested.

The properties of 3D-printed Nb C103 were compared to its equivalent wrought product, including the effect of heat treatments on microstructure evolution and materials properties. The 3D “as-printed” microstructures were extremely stable and largely intact even after 2 hours at 2900°F which is often exceeded this material’s application demand.

Superior properties of 3D-printed Nb C103 were observed from room temperature to elevated temperature. Hypothesis for such stable microstructures is proposed and validated. This work demonstrated a robust 3D printing process with superior materials properties, significant leap in producing highly sophisticated geometries, and sufficiently lowered manufacturing cost. A case study of performance gain in sophisticated Nb C103 engineered hardware will also be presented at RAPID+TCT.

More info:

https://rapid3devent.com/sessions/3d-printing-refractory-metals-for-extreme-environment-applications/

FORECAST 3D adds HP Jet Fusion 5210 3D printers to manufacturing center

FORECAST 3D (Carlsbad, CA) a privately-held 3D Printing prototyping and production service provider since 1994, announced that it has added two of HP’s Jet Fusion 5210 Pro industrial 3D printers, and will be offering a new elastic material (TPU) option, ULTRASINT™ developed by BASF.

Read more:

https://www.3dprintingmedia.network/forecast-3d-adds-hp-jet-fusion-5210-3d-printers-to-manufacturing-center/

Materialise to offer HP’s new Ultrasint TPU 3D printing material

Belgian 3D printing giant Materialise is, as of today, the first company to offer HP’s new Ultrasint TPU material for its Jet Fusion 5200 Series. The flexible material, developed by BASF, is now available through Materialise Onsite and i.materialise as well as through the company’s offline prototyping and manufacturing services.

Read more: https://www.3dprintingmedia.network/materialise-hp-ultrasint-tpu-3d-printing-material/

Additive Manufacturing to build missiles: Relativity Space

According to Jordan Noone, co-founder and CTO of Relativity Space, powder-bed printing technologies such as DMLS are becoming common in the aerospace industry. But he noted that DMLS printers and technology are too small and limited in scale to manufacture an entire missile.

Tim Ellis (ex Blue Origin) and Jordan Noone (ex SpaceX) joined in 2015 and decided to start a competing firm. The founders distinguished their company from Blue Origin and SpaceX by setting a novel and ambitious goal: be the first to 3D-print an entire missile.

For testing purposes, Relativity leases space at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where it has completed more than 100 test firings of its Aeon 1 engine. In addition, the company will build and operate a launch complex at Cape Canaveral.

Some organizations have addressed the challenge of large-scale 3D printing and worked on solutions, but they never developed a technology to the point that it could produce components of the quality and complexity required for missiles. “Our goal was to develop a printer that could streamline complicated assemblies by printing them in one piece,” says Noone, who leads the development team. “We architectured a printer that was ideal for our rocket launch vehicle, which is a long, skinny tube with thin walls and unique material properties and inspection criteria.”

Relativity’s patented printing system features an industrial robot arm with an end effector that houses the arc- and laser-deposition technology. An array of sensors surrounds the deposition system and constantly collects data, providing the real-time control necessary to ensure that printing is done with the required precision.

The combination also allows to control thermal input sufficiently to produce the required part properties and geometries. Though Relativity currently focuses mainly on printing with aluminum alloys, the system can print any weldable material, as well as certain nonweldable materials that respond well to the process. Relativity has started exploring the use of materials such as stainless steel and nickel alloys.

Missile Defense: ¿Why should an army wait a year to get end-use parts that It could be 3D-Printed?

Defense companies are using Additive Manufacturing more often today to build parts for weapons: Aerojet Rocketdyne is using the technology to build rocket engines, Huntington Ingalls is using it to build warships and Boeing is 3D printing parts for its commercial, defense, and space products. “In particular, rapid prototyping, along with the creation of highly specific and technical parts are orders of magnitude faster and cheaper than traditional manufacturing methods,” said a recently released RAND report. 

Someday, the military will 3D-print missiles as needed, the U.S. Air Force’s acquisition chief says. In the shorter term, he just wants to use Additive Manufacturing Technology to get broken planes back in the air. The roadblock is legal, not technical: “I have airplanes right now that are waiting on parts that are taking a year and a half to deliver. A year and a half,” Will Roper, the assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said in an interview.

The Air Force is already 3D-printing niche projects whose original suppliers no longer exist. The problem is with parts whose manufacturers are still around, but which no longer make the specific item in need. Today’s 3D-printers could make short work of those deliveries, but some of those parts’ original manufacturers control the intellectual property —and so far, the service lacks clear policy for dealing with that: “The reason I can’t say we’re going to do it is we’re talking about government contracts and IP, so I have lawyers that are helping me and other contracts folks,” Roper said. “But it’s an area I’m going to stay focused because I see a way for win-win. And that doesn’t happen often in the government.”

Application of Additive Manufacturing Technologies in Missile Manufacturing Industry: Strategy of India

Additive Manufacturing (AM), also popularly known as 3D Printing, is revolutionising the missile manufacturing landscape and presents huge challenges for a country’s defence capability and security.

(Read more)

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.”

Additive Manufacturing to get missile engines in 24 hours

The design, development and manufacturing of the 3D Printed, electric turbo-pump fed Rutherford Engine began in 2013, with the first test fire taking place in December of the same year.

Rutherford is produced by Rocket Lab via EBM (Electron Beam Melting), an advanced form of 3D Printing. Its engine chamber, injector, turbopumps, and main propellant valves are all printed and assembled into a lightweight shape.

Rocket Lab has produced a total of 40 flight-ready engines to date, and aims to produce another 100 engines by the end of this year. The Rutherford engine’s production scalability is facilitated by Additive Manufacturing, or 3D Printed primary components.

With a 3D printed combustion chamber, injectors, pumps, and main propellant valves, Rutherford has the most 3D printed components of any rocket engine in the world. Actually, Rutherford has two versions weighing just 35kg and offering 24 kN (5,500 lbf) thrust / 311 s (3.05 km/s) specific impulse (First Stage Engine) or 24 kN (5,500 lbf) thrust / 343 s (3.36 km/s) specific impulse (Second Stage)

As said, Rutherford features the use of electrically driven propellant pumps, rather than turbomachinery, further reducing complexity and build-time. This unique approach allows unmatched precision and control of propellent flow and a significant increase in performance through mass savings: “The Rutherford engine was designed from the beginning to be both high performing and fast to manufacture on a mass scale,” said Lachlan Matchett, Vice President of Propulsion. “By enabling faster, scalable engine production we speed up production of the whole vehicle. We can print an entire engine in as little as 24 hours."

Additive Manufacturing of missile engines: Three interesting capabilities

The rocket that blasted into space from New Zealand on May 25 was special, as it is the first to be powered by an engine made almost entirely using 3D printing. 

Members of the team behind the Electron rocket at US company RocketLab said the engine was printed in 24 hours adding that 3D printing proved to offer three interesting capabilities over traditional manufacturing techniques:

1) The ability to produce highly complicated shapes. For example, lattice structures produced in exactly the right way so that they weigh less but are just as strong as similar solid components. This creates the opportunity to produce optimised, lightweight parts that were previously impossible to manufacture economically or efficiently with traditional techniques.

2) The ability to work best for the production of relatively small, intricate parts rather than large, simple structures, where the higher material and processing costs would outweigh any advantage.

3) The ability to produce whole systems in one go rather than from lots of assembled parts. For example, NASA used it to reduce the components in one of its rocket injectors from 115 to just two. 

Industry 4.0 and the risk of nuclear proliferation

Because 3D printers can produce a wide variety of three-dimensional objects, the potential commercial and industrial applications are generating the arrival of a new manufacturing revolution, known as Industry 4.0.

Industry 4.0 is spreading in all the fields of manufacturing industry, and it also includes (¿why not?) defense industry. Some examples:

• The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is already experimenting with 3D printing in the manufacture of rocket engines.  (Dfr.: Kimberly Newton, “NASA Engineers Test Combustion Chamber to Advance 3-D Printed Rocket Engine Design,” NASA.gov, December 8, 2016)
• The U.S. and British Navies have been using 3D printers on aircraft carriers at sea to produce customized UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) during deployments. (Cfr.: Kyle Mizokami, “The future of America’s aircraft carriers?  Floating drone factories,” The Week, April 21, 2016; Jon Rosamond, “U.S., U.K. Navies Expanding Experiments Using 3D Printing,’ USNI News, September 22, 2015.)

But not all about 3D printing is pink-coloured, as it presents certain risks that must be taken into account. In this regard, Matthew Kroenig and Tristan Volpe assessed the risk of nuclear proliferation in their article titled “3D printing the bomb?” (Cfr.: The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3, Fall 2015, pp. 7-19) and the topic is garnering attention among policy analysts.

Much of the concern surrounds whether 3D printing represents a new way for a state-level WMD program to circumvent nonproliferation export controls, thanks to use a convenient way to produce sensitive components: The law uses to run behind the life, and today we have to face the risk of following guidelines developed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Missile Technology Control Regime in an era when 3D Printing didn't exist... but to be applied followed in a new era where anybody can send electronically some different CAD files corresponding to different parts of a sensitive assembly, to be printed in different 3D printing service bureaus located in different countries. ¿Impossible? Not at all: If you can imagine it, it can happen. And if the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime do not update their guidelines to the new challenges represented by the Industry 4.0, the hidden production and sale of sensitive WMD-relevant dual-use goods is not entirely hypothetical.

Design and Performance of Modular 3-D Printed Solid-Propellant Rocket Airframes

Solid-propellant rockets are used for many applications, including military technology, scientific research, entertainment, and aerospace education. This study explores a novel method for design modularization of the rocket airframes, utilizing Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology.

The new method replaces the use of standard part subsystems with complex multi-function parts to improve customization, design flexibility, performance, and reliability. To test the effectiveness of the process, two experiments were performed on several unique designs:

• ANSYS CFX® simulation to measure the drag coefficients, the pressure fields, and the streamlines during representative flights and fabrication and launch of the developed designs to test their flight performance and consistency.
• Altitude and 3-axis stability was measured during the eight flights via an onboard instrument package.

Data from both experiments demonstrated that the designs were effective, but varied widely in their performance; the sources of the performance differences and errors were documented and analyzed.

The modularization process reduced the number of parts dramatically, while retaining good performance and reliability. The specific benefits and caveats of using extrusion-based 3D Printing to produce airframe components are also demonstrated:

• 3D printing, particularly extrusion-based processes, is an excellent method for producing the complex multi-feature parts needed for optimized airframes.
• The print lines on 3D printed parts seemed to provide an advantage, not a disadvantage, to the rockets as it reduced the drag coefficient of the nose cone.

(Read More)

¿Could 3D printing change warfare as we know it?

The Massachusetts-based defense contractor Raytheon has revealed that is investing in a 3D printer that can build what they call “big structures”. ¿3D Printing to produce hypersonic missiles? That seems to be what Raytheon is working on: “There have been some fundamental game changers in the world of hypersonic missiles, so not only can you build them, but you can build them affordably. With 3D printing, you can build things you couldn’t otherwise build.” Regarding components, hypersonic engines and missiles rely on very complex and efficient networks of cooling channels, as moving at five times the speed of sound creates a lot of heating friction that requires efficient vents. The shape of such cooling ducts may be difficult whether impossible to achieve with casting, drilling and cutting..., but with a 3D printer, it is possible at all.

Now, ¿Why to print only some components... if you can print almost the entire missile? That seems to be the target when the company says “We just made a big investment on a unique machine to do some very, very big structures.” And that target seems to be very high up on their agenda, bearing in mind that Raytheon has already set up two proposals for DARPA funding: The Tactical Boost-Glide (TBG) (Essentially, a missile with a rocket motor that ‘skips’ off the atmosphere, much like a stone on the water) and the Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC), a missile that shoots itself forward by sucking in huge amounts of oxygen at a speed of higher than Mach 5. Undoubtly, two projects where 3D printing fits.

Raytheon is thus, working on 3D printed missiles that can hit enemies long before they’ve had a chance to react: ¿What if they could hit a nuclear missile ready for launch before it lifts off? ¡Even complex anti-missile batteries wouldn’t be able to lock onto a missile travelling at such speeds! Then, ¿Could 3D printing change warfare as we know it? Time will say it.

Additive Manufacturing for the US Navy’s Fleet Ballistic Missile program

With many of the companies that are designing and manufacturing weapons for the military using more and more Additive Manufacturing (AM) systems in their workflow, it was only a matter of time until 3D printed components made their way into arms and weapons.

Of course all we know that NASA and the US military have used 3D printed components to successfully test advanced prototype airplanes, spacecraft and even ground vehicles... But there aren't many more mission- and life-critical systems than a submarined nuclear ballistic missile.

This week, for the first time, a 3D printed component was used in a test flight for the new, high-tech upgrade to the US Navy’s Fleet Ballistic Missile program.  The component was designed and fabricated entirely using 3D design and 3D printing, a process that allowed Lockheed Martin engineers to produce the part in half the time it would take traditional methods.

(Read more)

Additive Manufacturing: "Imagine the Possibilities"

Additive Manufacturing allows engineers to create complex geometries out of polymers, metals, and composites that are not possible through traditional manufacturing techniques.

Logisticians are seriously looking at Additive Manufacturing, which promises to allow the military to print parts in-theatre, significantly reducing the burden on the supply chain.

Rear Admiral Vincent Griffith, Director of DLA Logistics Operations at the Defense Logistics Agency is excited about the possibilities additive manufacturing offers: “One area that strikes a chord with DLA is 3D printing, because of the potential additive manufacturing has for helping us obtain obsolete and hard-to-source parts for the more than 2,400 weapon systems we support. Additive manufacturing is a fairly new concept, but we’re thinking big. We want to expand our additive manufacturing parts catalog for integration into the supply system; produce approved critical safety item parts; establish and maintain a parts-on-demand capability; and have a library of Technical Data Packages with 3D models to enable faster production.”

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