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COMMENTARY


center of excellence should house. He has coordinated with HQDA to help develop a policy on supporting tacti- cal use and requirements of advanced manufacturing, and has begun working with organic industrial base locations on their advanced manufacturing needs. Not only has the center been working with the organic industrial base, but it has also been working with private industry, academia and the other services to leverage their best practices, he said.


Flinn said 3D printing offers point-of-use fabrication options, is competitive for small production and is a new method of manufacturing that opens up design freedom. In the past decade, 3D printing has gone from a method of making prototypes with little manu- facturing applicability to becoming an integral part of the manufacturing process. Improvements in printing speed and accuracy, materials, cost and computer modeling-and-simulation systems have dramatically accelerated the technology’s use in manufacturing, he said. The technology can help the tactical Army right now, by providing on-demand, temporary replacement parts, he added.


While the center is currently focused on 3D printing, other advanced manufacturing techniques are being introduced into mainstream processes within RIA–


JMTC. Those include the use of robotics, process simulation and material optimization, Flinn said.


“Robotics is being used at the arsenal in the welding and investment casting processes to remove repeti- tive motion and improve process stability.” Investment casting comprises precise wax parts created using an injection-molding machine and a die that contains the shape of the part to be made, Flinn said. Smaller parts can be attached to a tree—a frame that enables batch-creation of the parts’ shells. This process can create almost any part for any piece of equipment— any part that can be created in wax can go through this process.


The wax object is then dipped in and coated with a wet refractory material—a ceramic slurry and sand that, when hardened, won’t be degraded by heat— and then the whole assembly goes to an autoclave that melts the wax away for reclamation, then on to the furnace to harden the ceramic refractory material,


creating a shell. Any wax that’s left will be burned away in the furnace. Then, metal goes into the mold to make the part. Robotics helps to increase the effi- ciency, volume and speed of the process. Robotics


“also allowed us to expand weight of the [invest- ment casting] mold, which increased our yield and our range of parts that we could [make bigger]. The robot’s job is finished once the ‘dipping’ of the shell is completed. From there, it is removed from the process and hand-delivered to all follow-on operations.” (For more on how the process works, go to https://www. facebook.com/RIAJMTC/videos/670254872464


/?v=670254872464.) The center is also using process simulation whereby


“we can, through mathematic models, recreate solid- ification and stress that are induced during the transformation of metal from a liquid to a solid.” This, Flinn continued, reduces the need to have a casting expert on hand. It also helps to reduce costs by elimi- nating trial-and-error iterations on the shop floor. “The present system has shifted the need from a casting [expert] to a modeling and simulation [expert].” That parallels what happened with computer numerical control machining after its introduction.


Artificial intelligence has the potential to aid in shift- ing repetitive tasks from humans to machines—for example, combining artificial intelligence with process simulation. “In combining the two, much of the human interface necessary to write NC programs, prepare process plans, design tooling and manage the logistic chain will be minimized, if not eliminated,” Flinn said.


Advanced manufacturing will be key to the Army’s future overmatch capabilities. “It provides oppor- tunities to improve readiness, optimize design and lethality, drive down cost and expand the manufac- turing base,” he said.


—JACQUELINE M. HAMES


https://asc.ar my.mil


105


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