How to utilize this capability to its maximum potential?

For more than a decade, The Dutch Ministry of Defense has been using Additive Manufacturing and 3D-Printing technology in Prototyping and Production of non-critical spare parts or for repairing of existing parts. However, around the same time period the MoD adopted this technology, some patents became free which has accelerated the development of all sorts of 3D Printing Machines what we now call Additive Manufacturing. In the remainder of this article, I will try to avoid the word 3DPrinting and will stick to Additive Manufacturing as much as possible.

It's probably difficult to believe but, although the Dutch MoD has more than a decade of experience in Additive Manufacturing and cumulative experience of all AM specialist over a hundred years, we have not yet adopted this technology in mass.

Why? Let us find that out together.

Challenges in adoption of Additive Manufacturing into the Armed Forces.

1. Safety in Aerospace Materials and Process Certification

Defense Materials, especially in the Aerospace have to be rigorously tested to prove how they will perform under loads after millions of cycles, after thousands of touchdowns, how they perform under high temperatures or low temperatures, how they will react to salinity in humid air above sea conditions, high mechanical wear and tear conditions, how they behave in combat, after receiving battle damage, operational failures and accidents, how they disintegrate and cause cascade effects. What this means is that safety dictates what will be used to produce a military equipment, in this case for aircraft which is a good thing. I will use aerospace as an example just to emphasize the bigger picture. Otherwise, I'll have to dive into deep crevasses of all specific defense materials which is not possible to provide insight without losing you the reader in the meantime. When materials are certified for use in aerospace then also the engineering, design and production processes need to be certified. This certification of materials and processes is needed to be able to produce products in the thousands with high degree of predictability of the outcome as a lot of parts rejection during Release for Volume (R4V) has a Cost of Quality and looks bad on a company's reputation, which will inevitably lead to Supplier (Re-)Assessment or Audit if not met; possibly leading to disclosing a company for further cooperation in the worst case. Not even to start about the possibility that such a part would not be detected and used in an aircraft. But when you start producing a "first part ever" you are still in the prototyping phase in terms of manufacturing and still have to produce possibly multiple parts that need to be tested and audited, which is called First Article Inspection (FAI). After meticulous reviews, audits, destructive and non-destructive testing, hundreds of hours of teleconferencing with the customers and later your parts and the processes are finally reviewed and accepted. This means you may start production for R4V, without the full quality control for each and every part where hundreds of parameters and tolerances are checked and validated, but you are allowed to apply your own or in some cases by the customer dictated quality control plans and only a dozen of parameters are checked by your quality control department and only a handful by the customer; which in time becomes a statistically dictated quality control, meaning one out of a hundred or in a million will be checked and validated based on a required Sigma.

This is just to illustrate how much effort goes into developing aerospace materials and products, without going into the painstaking iterative process of design and development, even the production processes and parts or aircraft acceptance is a very long and slow process.

As a result, although there are solid examples of aerospace application a process like Additive Manufacturing still in development, producing parts with different quality and results under the same conditions with hundreds of parameters that could influence the outcome is still the driving force behind the lack of speed in adoption! Although we are working on adoption of Additive Manufacturing within the Defense, we are still a long way from mass acceptance and mass adoption. Solid steps are being taken in the meanwhile. Recent news shows that ASTM and ISO have released a framework for 3D Printed metal parts.

ASTM International and ISO Unveil Framework for Global 3D Printing Standards

2. Conservatism, "What you don't know you don't eat!"

Even the dead slow progress of material sciences and the applications within aerospace does not necessarily mean they will be adopted. After extended testing and repeated validation of usability and benefits within aerospace still doesn't guarantee adoption, as the technology has to overcome cultural and social barriers. But by whom? Armed Forces or the OEM? As we buy systems form OEM's, if not captured within a spec or standardization, it is basically the OEM that to certain extend dictates what materials are used, taking into account system performance requirements if drafted by the customer, ease of manufacturing and cost are driving factors next to cultural acceptance. So the adoption of materials and production methods are also affected by culture. For example, without disclosing the companies involved, we know there are aerospace companies that have proposed the use of certain materials in aerospace parts such as composites to a level that is not seen before. Although proven to be technically and economically feasible the proposal was rejected as some high profiled people didn't want to have "tupperware" parts in their aircraft. A typical attitude of "You don't eat what you don't know!" Or is it? As composites are proved time and time again and are widely used in every aspect of high-tech where mechanical high performance is required, is there something else causing this reluctance for accepting? If of course there is no operational disadvantage to applying such materials, which will result in cost reduction that is a good thing for the OEM and the customer that is going to use that system. But this example shows that even in the most progressive companies in the World we can find at least one dinosaur, or these decisions are driven by other unknown parameters. For example proposing the worlds biggest steel manufacturer to use a new kind of steel alloy because it is better, cheaper, more durable or lighter doesn't mean you will be welcomed as heroes when in the country where this steel manufacturer is located the knowledge and competence isn't there to produce this alloy or the original raw materials are in abundance. So there is no immediate need for them to change anything. For you it might be a good thing, but for them it isn't. So, we could say that besides commercial interests and corporate culture there is also geopolitics and a macro- and micro-level economics influence on the acceptance of (aerospace) materials.

These are two factors mostly outside the Armed Forces of today as we are most of the time users of such systems and do not dictate the use of materials and production methods unless there is an absolute reason for doing that. And this applies while there is tons of ASTM's, Stanags, ISO's and similar Industry Standards. But with emergence of Additive Manufacturing we know OEM's are interested in lowering their Logistical Footprint. So, why not provide this as a service? Why sell the produced part which needs logistics to go from A to B when you can also earn on the production on demand near the user? This is something we at the Armed Forces are thinking about.

3. Pragmatism, don't fix if not broken

We at the Armed Forces, especially the military are pragmatists to the core, up to the point that we say don't fix if it isn't broken or don't change a winning team and don't eat what you don't know! Yes, there it is again.. So why not try something new if it will benefit a larger goal? Why is it that we welcome creativity and ingenuity in combat, but reject that same driving force in peace? We think because in combat we use the SOP's and standardized tactics, doctrine and materials to get a desired predictable outcome and when that is in jeopardy we become creative. And in peacetime safety regulations always prevail, so standards and procedures are never to be abandoned in peacetime. However to my opinion there is no difference between combat and peacetime operations when both are planned and executed the same way. So there is a dilemma. Can we never abandon SOP's while being creative and pragmatic? I can't answer that question, yet...

4. "Maintainers", not "Manufactures"

Being a maintainer and user of a system is a different thing then being the (OEM) manufacturer. Although we are type certificate holders of our own aircraft, meaning we could to some extend engineer, re-design and produce parts ourselves and some experiments are being done, this has yet to be applied or approved. The older our systems are getting and the lesser spare parts are available, the more we will be forced to apply re-design of parts to some extent with or without the help of the OEM's. However, more and more OEM's have switched their center of gravity to their new products in line and support only at a bear minimum or at a price tag. This forces us further and further to either speed up adoption of new systems or due to other reasons search for means to support our current systems longer. With the last case we will eventually move to acceptance of Additive Manufacturing as a process not only supportive to maintenance processes but also will be used to produce spare parts in time for even current systems.

5. Efficiency over Effectiveness as governmental policy in Armed Forces

Our Armed Forces have been subjected to years of systematic budget cuts. So, it shouldn't be a surprise when we say that sooner or later it effects the effectiveness. The current processes are all super-focused on cost efficiency and are hard baked into our logistics and supply chain to the point that it costs more money to complete a deviating non recurring project, investment or expenditure then it should under "normal" circumstances. Meaning we have difficulty to start doing things that are out of the ordinary. As Additive Manufacturing (AM) is still to be viewed as something out the ordinary it ins't easy to setup production and maintenance processes within this context.

As we in this section zoomed in the reasons why AM is still a technology long way from adoption in the MoD, there are very promising steps being undertaken in the Dutch MoD

Current Applications of Additive Manufacturing in the Dutch Armed Forces

Before we make a deep-dive into current applications our applications are similar to what is happening in the industry or similar to what other Armed Forces are doing. Mainly the following areas are the current applications to be identified within the Dutch MOD.

Prototyping

Tooling, Test & Support Equipment

Manufacturing

Social & Cultural Innovation

Prototyping is to be viewed as the stepping stone to the next phase in product development. Product development is an iterative process in which many changes can and will be made before the final product emerges and in most cases will even undergo changes during the product's life cycle. In practice, the Dutch MoD does this the most for the Dutch Special Forces where customization is needed the most for products like facial support for NVG/IR-camera's to improve the product ergonomy thus prolonging the use of NVG/IR camera's during special operations.

Tooling and Support Equipment is much closer to final products and weapon systems. Although at first, it seems that this would be more suitable for OEM's we at the Dutch MoD need this as well as we also have more production- and assembly-line-like processes. For example: heavy maintenance on Aircraft. Sometimes assembly, modification requires tooling and support equipment which would in this case without Additive Manufacturing will be made in a classical fashion leading to long lead times and multiple iterations. By using Additive Manufacturing in the Tooling and Equipment significant cuts in lead times can be realized from idea to delivery of tooling and support equipment and shortens the iteration distance from CAD design department to the Shop Floor. In fact, there is an active project of AIR Royal Netherlands Air Forces Innovation center in collaboration with Ultimaker aiming to do exactly this on the work floor. In order to build a business case my colleagues have arranged a mobile Tool and Support Equipment design and production team that visited certain shops and factory floors where workers can directly explain what they need in order to improve their work environment or to increase the performance.

This has lead to an investment bringing 3D Printers to certain shop floors. For example Avionics Shop is using 3D printing to design and produce their own test equipment for Linear Variable Differential Transformers (LVDT) used in Helicopters to measure flight control surface positions. Below you can see a test rig for an LVDT.

We've figured that the more 3D Printing is incorporated into recurring daily processes the faster the ROI will be as it improves the factory floor productivity. Improved productivity is not the only reason why we are doing this. This way of working also helps to transform the classical thinking and leads to social and cultural innovation! It's a less obvious effect but what it means for the shop floor worker is that the CAD-designer is working together with him or her to design and implement a tool in just 24 to 48 hours instead of months. They feel ownership and engagement in the process and have a profound feeling of satisfaction when their idea is realized just in a couple days and it is being used in the work processes. This secondary effect is a social and cultural change that is taking place as we speak. Industry 4.0 is making its move into our workshop, offices and harts and minds. So, although the productivity improvement is substantial, 3D Printing at the shop floor aims in fact to achieve more of a social and cultural innovation.

1st half 2018 some of the workshops will receive 3D Printers and necessary equipment so that they can design, produce and implement non critical tooling and equipment such as tools, jigs, fixtures and assembly aids by themselves.

Here is an example how Volkswagen uses 3D Printing to improve productivity on the assembly line.

Yet another example of more of a social and cultural innovation is the use of 3D-Printers on board of Navy Frigates. This has started in 2016. Also the Army is taking tangible steps towards using and adoption of Additive Manufacturing as they used a MarkForged in Mali during a mission to produce temporary replacement parts for the Special Forces.

A CAD-designer in the Netherlands was continuously available to change or improve the design and a users printed the file sent form the Netherlands on the MarkForged 3D Printer with High Strength materials such as composites, carbon fiber, kevlar and fiberglass providing high strength and durability. Field Experiments and on-site, on-demand designed and produced parts delivered on most cases even better and stronger parts then the originals as these new parts have a very short operational validation cycle. In fact this could be viewed as a product improvement or optimization effort which has proven to be very valuable!

In addition to these tangible efforts we identified a very different need. Namely, 90% of all current CAD designers, Mechanical Engineers use some sort of Finite Element Method in their product design. However this is mostly for strength of stiffness verification purposes. How about topology optimization? Only 10% of engineers in the industry really understand and use the principle of topology optimization. Not even to consider the percentage of our own engineers using topology optimization and design for Additive Manufacturing principles in day to day practices. Six months ago we published a short public post on Linkedin about this subject. Below is a link to that feed.

Design for Additive Manufacturing

Dutch Army's RoadMap to Mass Adoption of Additive Manufacturing

The low serviceability of various land-based (weapon) systems has been causing a major problem for Defense. This problem is caused by, among other things, a lack of spare parts. The organization is experimenting with various project plans and innovative applications to solve these problems. One of these applications is Additive Manufacturing (AM).

With AM, the Ministry of Defense is experimenting on several fronts. Various printers at different locations provide insight into the possibilities of this technology. The problem remains that this development does not professionalize. It is important to recognize what Defense wants to achieve with this technology and how to implement this.

With drafting a roadmap we answer the following central question: Why does AM have added value for Defense and how do we ensure structural embedding of Additive Manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing in the organization?

The added value of AM for Defense (why) results from a higher availability of parts during missions and exercises (reducing downtime), saving on inventory and transport costs due to reduced stock requirements (reducing logistic footprint) and cheap, fast and simple way of manufacturing prototypes. As a result AM contributes to the adaptability of the organization, higher employability and a lower footprint.

In the functional perspective, we describe the phased embedding of AM within Defense (how). This phasing consists of three phases, of which the first phase is the period 0-2 years, the second phase the period 2-5 years and the third phase the period 5-10 years.

By implementing the established phasing, structural embedding will be possible in the organization. This looks like this:

- The first phase is focused on awareness through decentralized practice and the development and acquisition of understanding for AM within the organization. A foundation will be laid for an AM center to have specific personnel and material capacity available.

- In the second phase, this AM center develops and professionalises and AM is already being applied in various projects.

- In the third phase structurally and in the entire organization in a network context AM is used for all available assets in the organization.

In the instrumental perspective, per phase, the functionalities are filled in and what needs to be done to reach the end state (what). Finally, it is important to understand that the implementation and adoption of AM within Defense is and remains an iterative process.

As a one of the serious first steps out of a series, Dutch Armed forces have recently launched an Additive Manufacturing Centre at a Logistic Support Base of the Army.

In the meantime

I see possibilities to:

1. Additive Manufacturing of temporary habitats, protective buildings and living areas far from Home Support in operational theatres, war zones as well as natural disaster area's in 2nd and 3rd World Countries; especially when fiber reinforcements is to be applied into fast curing concrete.

2. Additive Manufacturing of food when in remote locations under difficult circumstances and to customize the nutritional or medicinal values to the needs of the individual soldier or patient.

3. Additive Manufacturing of living tissue, skin and organs in time

4. Additive Manufacturing of Guided Munitions and Explosives

5. Additive Manufacturing of weapons and parts of weapons

6. Additive Manufacturing of Adaptive Camouflage or even Quantum Stealth (possibly elements in and array that are controlled by a central nervous system and are very quickly relocatable and redeployment)

7. Additive Manufacturing of systems of mostly self-replicating and self-assembling parts and systems that can be deployed and performing the assembly en reproduction tasks in difficult and dangerous environments.

8. Systems using a 3D-Printed construction to guide and or propel itself alongside to build larger constructions in difficult or hazardous environments such as in high levels of radiation where scaffolding or bridge constructions are needed

9. Additive Manufacturing of dummies, exercise materials, spare parts for educational and training purposes

10. Additive Manufacturing of products for mass customization for the individual soldier

For Manufacturing???

For Manufacturing there is tons of potential. Producing redesigned and optimized parts that are performing even better than the originals. Spare and temporary replacements. Reversed engineered products. (Even In-Field) Refurbishing and revitalising of existing parts by using techniques as Laser Cladding and Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing on for example high performance turbines and ship rotors as well as Armored Vehicle Tracks are very much technically and economically feasible, as proven by Ir. Rein van der Mast in the past with his proposal to apply Laser-Cladding to repair tracks in field leading to significant reductions in lead times and cost.

There are just simply to many example to list them all. What is important is to look for two things. One is for the most common applications which will make the transition to mass adoption of 3DPrinting and Additive Manufacturing easier, such as our examples of Mali and tooling and support materials in the production line and second is the search for the killer application as a Ir. Sjef van Gastel, Director Innovative Production Technologies at Fontys center of Expertise, Hightech Systems & Materials ( CoE HTSM), laboratory for Additive Manufacturing (Objexlab)likes to call them. These are applications where the design freedom of Additive Manufacturing will significantly add to the products form, fit and functions and cost less then the original. However they are very difficult to identify, not so easy to implement and require serious redesign efforts.

Industry is moving forward. The big OEM's already researching and experimenting with organic designs and bio-mimicry, AM equipment manufacturers are improving and experimenting on hybrid manufacturing, large parts printing, full composite fuselage printing, further development on very fast printing with EBAM etc. It is for the Armed Forces almost impossible to keep up with the developments on AM. Even the US Armed Forces are teaming up with the industry. Recently, the US Navy has publicly announced to award a 6.4M USD contract to CTC and more recently a the news was announced that a Consortium using AM was to Replace Aging Parts on USAF Aircraft.

US Navy awards 6.4M USD contract to CTC

Consortium Using AM to Replace Aging Parts on Air Force Aircraft

The reason why I'm showing these examples of cooperation is that I also think that catching up with the knowledge and technology gap by our own will be almost impossible and even if we succeed all by ourselves we will end up with 10 to 15 years technology gap with the industry. It is our believe that in some cases such as in integration of industrial grade AM into our production processes it is best to do this in a consortium or in a civil/military cooperation such as with Dutch Aero for Engine MRO or with Terma... There is within the Royal Dutch Air Force plenty initiatives to attract the defense industry to Woensdrecht Air Base or the Aviolanda Aerospace Cluster. I think that a construction enabling a cooperation between the industry specialized in Additive Manufacturing and the Armed Forces combining this with regional industries to keep up with the latest developments and incorporate AM into current industrial processes. It is very much imaginable that such a cooperation could be adopted by the Armed Forces as well at the Logistic Support Centre .

Where will this probably end up?

I believe that this will turn out to a different system approach. One in which bodies, structures and constructions are very intelligently designed, but are ultimately very basic but organic in form and shape without intelligence in the material itself. Up until meta materials become mainstream so that shape changing will not be a science fiction anymore. So until then the next generation of Aircraft, probably commercial before military will make a move to organic shaped fuselage segments, wing sections and fuel tanks instead of geometrically straight lines, trusses, longerons and perpendicular and hard segmentation in fuel tanks. Without getting into to much detail, We will deal with this subject in another article about 6th Generation Aircraft.

So if all the "smartness" goes into the design and not during the manufacturing or assembly as machines become either longer sustainable of use and discard, what happens to all the manufacturing and assembly workers and not to forget to the maintainers? That would be our field of interest.

Looking at the current pace of technological development on the field of AI, Robotics and Industry 4.0, I believe that there is a considerable chance that, in time the need for manufacturing and assembly workers will go down drastically. Most of these workers will be reeducated for other purposes. This will also apply for the maintainers if we would move to use either systems that are designed for long usage or due to the speed of technological development will have a very short Product Life Cycle thus could be manufactured with very-low- to no-maintenance requirements as these systems can be discarded in a very short time. So what do we do with all these maintenance specialists, engineers etc? We believe they might become an integrated part in the manufacturing supply chain. That will require a huge change in mindset from our side but also from the side of the OEM as the hardware is not the value but the intellectual property. It might even get to the point the intellectual property itself could become obsolete.

Future Developments?

Prototyping started as Rapid Prototyping with Stereolithography (SLA) and Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), in the ’80's of the last century. Possible future developments just like BAE's chemical building could be the next step in this type of technology. Future might bring specific mission optimized discartable weapon systems or more durable and multirole weapon systems without intelligence, where the intelligence goes into rapidly exchangeable mission equipment. But, I will keep this topic for my next article "AMCAV's to become the 6th Gen Aircraft as a means of Deterrence?".

Summary

Unmistakably, Additive Manufacturing has an huge potential and an undeniable Added Value for all Armed Forces around the world. Especially for Armed Forces that are small in size, but would like to stay technologically relevant within a coalition or within NATO, must and should make rapid progress into the field of Additive Manufacturing for Mass Adoption and make this a common part of their standard processes.

In this, it is in my humble opinion better to search for rapid application of the so called low hanging fruits......Although the academia and knowledge institutes have an undeniable contribution for pushing this technology forward but they lack the implementation phase in the workforce on the shop floor. We believe that the best way is a hybrid approach in which we investigate the rapid adoption and application of Additive Manufacturing through the Low Hanging fruits and through cooperation with AM specializing Industry similar to what the USAF is doing and also look for Moon Shots together with the academia and Knowledge Institutes.

We believe that this is just the beginning of a very exciting time

With special thanks to:

Ir. Rein van der Mast

Ir Sjef van GastelCapt.

Capt. Stephan Wildenberg

Author:

Capt. Kubilay Yildirim