Shipbuilders out there where busy in completing their deadline of refit of Aircraft carriers of as they are late on it they are starting making parts by 3D printing rather by forge techniques, they also thought of making submarines also like this.
Waiting and installing it later “would have been significantly risky and a big cost impact,” Fields a officer added.
Instead of choosing between a schedule delay or the added expense, the shipbuilder and the Navy worked together to design, qualify and 3D print the part in just four months, meeting the March superlift deadline.
Though the circumstance was unusual, the Navy and its suppliers are hoping it will one day be the default, instead of the dated casting procedure.
Top Navy officials have repeatedly pointed to challenges in the submarine industrial base in particular, as well as its aircraft carrier and surface ship industrial base. The number of suppliers is dwindling even as the service would like to increase its production rate.
In the case of the Virginia-class attack submarines, for instance, industrial base concerns are the sole reason the government is not boosting its procurement rate from two a year to three.
Matt Sermon, the executive director for the Program Executive Office for Strategic Submarines who oversees submarine industrial base issues, said the Navy isn’t pursuing additive manufacturing as a novelty, but rather “we are doing this because we have to.”
It’s “the path” to getting to on-time submarine construction and repairs
He said Jan. 30 at an American Society of Naval Engineers conference that the industrial base struggles the most to keep up with the required capacity of heavy metal parts and components. These include castings, forgings, valves, fittings and fasteners.
In fact, he said, the Navy looked at 5,500 parts that have presented schedule challenges for new construction and maintenance availabilities for submarines and ships; six materials account for 70% of late deliveries, he said. Additive manufacturing could get more of these parts to construction and repair yards faster and more reliably.
These parts have always been a challenge to the industrial base, as the fundamental metallurgy is complex and can lead to flaws. But there are fewer companies making these components today than in past decades, and that smaller base is struggling to keep up with growing demand.
The Navy has developed a plan to mature the metals, printing machines and processes associated with those six materials this year, such that by March 2024 they can be printed in volume and put on submarines,
Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine construction has already begun but will continue to grow in the coming years, even though the industrial base is already struggling with the current workload. Vic Adm . Galinis ( naval commander) said additive manufacturing as an alternate to castings and forgings will help industry keep the Columbia program on schedule and get the Virginia-class program back on track.“What you’d like to be able to do is to identify high-volume, high-usage parts, and you have a printing capability that allows you to print those on a pretty regular basis. There’s elements of private industry out there that have done some of that,” he said. “Our challenge right now is, one, quickly coming through the certification process, codifying what that’s going to look like, and then being able to scale additive manufacturing.He said castings are particularly tough for the yard, and there’s a long list of cast metal parts he’s struggling to procure on time and in good quality.
“That example of all the time and money spent trying to get those parts to me so I can get them installed on the ship on time is where I see 3D printing being able to really move the needle.”Sermon said additive manufacturing could shorten the production timeline for certain metal pieces by an average of 80%, depending on the printer’s efficiency.
Sermon said the aviation community and academia have already invested in significant research into additive manufacturing with certain metals, and in those cases the Navy can move forward pretty quickly. But in metals specifically geared to naval applications, including copper-nickel and some steel alloys, more research is needed on what happens when these materials are used for printing, particularly how it affects the metals’ fatigue and corrosion properties.
“But the Navy needs to ensure its rigorous engineering standards are applied”.
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