Why we added additive to our procurement proposals

Prime defense contractor recommends 3D-printing technology to support supply chain, near-theater repair, legacy-part replacement.

GRCop (copper alloy) aerospike engine thruster (inset photo) the Air Force Research Laboratory is currently working on with Velo3D (the thruster is visible on a Sapphire AM system). While not a Hartech project, it is an example of progress being made in AM in aerospace.
GRCop (copper alloy) aerospike engine thruster (inset photo) the Air Force Research Laboratory is currently working on with Velo3D (the thruster is visible on a Sapphire AM system). While not a Hartech project, it is an example of progress being made in AM in aerospace.
AFRL, via Velo3D

When you’re a turnkey provider to the federal government’s military and defense divisions, you gain expertise in accelerating procurement timelines for complete installations. It can take one to three years just to get the business case for a large project written up, justifications solidified, and purchases made – then parts and materials need to be delivered, built and/or installed.

As a prime contractor to the U.S. government for more than 12 years, my company, Hartech Group, has specialized in making this procurement go as smoothly and quickly as possible. As an example, for a complete turnkey installation of a large CNC gantry mill at a U.S. Air Force base, we covered all the contract work: rigging, concrete work, laying of air lines, electrical lines – everything. When it was completed, we literally turned the keys over to the operator and they began making parts, all contracted under one purchase order.

Until recently we’ve largely built our business applying machining solutions (CNC, lathe, traditional milling, etc.) to military production challenges. But now, when appropriate, we’ve also begun recommending additive manufacturing (AM) equipment to all branches of the Military, including projects at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), several U.S. bases, and a number of the arsenals.

Why? Because AM is now truly delivering end-use parts – and it’s time for government entities to embrace this reality fully – or be left behind by their global competitors. The technology is particularly essential when applied to replacement-part procurement requirements because its deliverables include valuable supply chain speed-up, near-theater repair, and legacy flight- and vehicle-part replacement applications.

I’ve worked with AM for decades (an early project involved working with the Air Force on B-basis production-ready high-temperature polymer components for the F-35 aircraft) before joining Hartech in 2021. I’ve watched the technology mature from early plastic prototyping to finished metal-alloy parts that can now go from the printer to the field with minimal post-processing.

In recent years, from the most advanced AM system providers, I’m seeing dramatic improvements in dimensional accuracy and repeatability that truly deliver on the AM promise of design freedom and complexity. We are representing four different AM-related technologies now – Velo3D for advanced metal laser powder-bed fusion (LPBF), Stratasys for five unique polymer solutions, Ingersoll for large robotic and gantry-style metal and polymer printers, and Quintus for high-temperature hot isostatic pressing (HIP-ing).

We’re recommending AM because, quite simply, you can build better parts with it. You can make more complicated parts. You can combine assemblies, bringing hundreds of parts down to single digits. You can deliver reliable, repeatable parts anywhere around the globe. And in the admittedly slow-moving world of defense contracting, you can accomplish all of this more quickly.

Say you’re near a warfare theater and equipment is breaking down. If you have the validated 3D-data file for a broken part back home, and a 3D printer near-theater, you can securely send the data to the theater, print that part on-site, get it back onto that vehicle, that aircraft – and return it to action very quickly. Just getting a specific wrench to take a bolt off a Humvee, it could take two weeks to fly it from somewhere in the U.S. to overseas. With AM, all you have to do is program it, print it overnight, and you’re up and running the next day.

Another example: there are a lot of aging military aircraft in the skies right now that we have to keep flying – some of them already 20 years past their project life cycle. They could fly another 20 years if you had the right maintenance/replacement parts, but you often can’t get them anymore. Yet with AM you can now laser-scan the old part, reverse engineer it, and 3D print it – perhaps in lighter, tougher titanium rather than the original stainless steel.

Of course, it’s not always that simple. Some aircraft original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have been resistant to putting such parts on their planes because they’re not original equipment. This is something the U.S, military is working on – and when ordering new aircraft or ground vehicles they are now pushing the OEMs to use 3D-printed parts whenever possible because having that data package up front is going to be the future of maintaining and sustaining these resources.

Metal AM offers valuable solutions to aerospace and defense: production-quality parts that are 99.9% dense, requiring just a bit of final machining in certain areas – and that are then ready to be bolted onto a production component. The military is already taking the first steps: witness the GrCop (copper alloy) aerospike engine thruster the Air Force Research Laboratory is currently working on with Velo3D. The technology continues to evolve, but the top-tier LBPF equipment is producing very-high-quality metal parts now. It’s time to turn those first steps into leaps that can massively benefit the defense industry, moving forward.

About the author: Gary Bredael is director of additive manufacturing, Hartech Group.