The US Army designated several research programs as essential for its future modernization capabilities. 

One of the initiatives regards the integration of the innovative technological procedure of additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, which is considered to play a vital role in the Army’s applications.

The said innovation has opened the door to the creation of geometric designs never thought possible with traditional manufacturing methods. Thus, the US  Army is employing it to print large parts for military ground vehicles.

The US Army DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC), together with US Army TACOM, and SAE Government Technologies, will hold a reception on April 6 for the opening of a new Advanced Manufacturing Commercialization Center (AMCC), located in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

The center will house the Army’s Jointless Hull subsection tool, a hybrid metal additive manufacturing machine used for engineering development and production in support of the full-size Jointless Hull machine located at Rock Island Arsenal – Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center. 

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According to experts, they are planning to leverage the technology in this center to more efficiently manufacture parts, reduce weight, lower costs and improve long-term sustainment efforts by enabling a capacity to build replacement parts on-demand, all to improve Army readiness.

While the ability to produce monolithic hulls is important, the new machine will also have the capacity to build and machine much larger additively manufactured parts than currently possible.

Within the US Army inventory, there are a lot of big metal parts for which additive manufacturing is not even an option, simply because they don’t fit within the build envelope of the current machines available in the industry. 

Yet, this new machine will provide Rock Island Arsenal with an additive and machining capability – not to be found anywhere else – to not only produce parts for the Army, but also across the Department of Defence.

In fact, the said system shall be available to industry partners for commercial and military use through its partnership with SAE Government Technologies, while it will be capable of producing parts up to 3 cubic feet in size.

3D Printing is also a field of research and interest for the European Defence Industry and, through various programs such as the European Defence Fund (EDF), projects have been announced in the past for, among others, innovative technologies and Additive Manufacturing processes for the production of multifunctional spare parts and ammunition.

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