Boston Engineering established a business relation with ADDiTEC, an innovator and maker of an open materials platform using wire Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) technology; a form of Direct Energy Deposition (DED) employed for metal additive manufacturing (MAM). Our qualified team of engineers and subject matter experts will advance ADDiTEC technology to meet operational requirements on board expeditionary vessels, such as shock and vibration. Development efforts include development, options analysis, concept design and solution transition planning. Starting with a proven MAM technology lowers risk for establishing high value metal printing capability and should reduce the transition time to commercialization the benefits for our warfighters. Development activities include assessment and concept design for part additive manufacturing (AM) in conjunction with subtractive manufacturing (SM), e.g., Haas CNC, which provides a more advanced and complete part manufacturing solution. Phase I enables final technical assessments and gap analysis needed to set Phase II final design, build and testing of a MAM system at a lab equipped to verify resilience to simulated operational conditions expected. Initial part build quality monitoring will be executed during Phase I efforts, but Phase I Option will be used to advance detailed options and planning for establishing desired capability.
Benefit: Establishment of shipboard on demand rapid metal manufacturing capability offers significant benefit to our warfighters, including ensuring our assets and weapons systems are ready for the fight. Printing a qualified and certified part on demand essentially eliminated logistical challenges experienced currently. What typically might take months will take days or less. While cost benefits will be significant the primary benefit is increased readiness and availability. The results of this SBIR topic will transition to the NAVSEA AM program and will be installed in a shipboard advanced manufacturing lab. It will develop technical authority guidance for qualification and certification in the afloat environment. A Phase III will focus on additional capabilities and acquisition of the system for installation on additional ships under the afloat AM program of record. Potential commercial applications include systems for other maritime environments such as offshore drilling operations and commercial shipping vessels dealing with similar environmental changes seem on expeditionary defense vessels.
Keywords: Vessels, Vessels, Direct Energy Deposition, Maritime, Metal Additive Manufacturing, AM, advanced manufacturing, DED, expeditionary
