COMPLEX GEOMETRY
CREATIVE SPARK
Ryan Muzii, REF support engineer, cuts metal for a project. The Army has posi- tioned additive capabilities in operational areas to produce items at the point of need, but much of its additive work is in printing parts to enhance readiness and speed up the sustainment process.
For prototyping
or for mainstream manufacturing, I can have a tool made [additively]
“
and up and running in 24 hours.
78 Army AL&T Magazine ”
Tat kind of exploratory effort is happening in various places around the Army—the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) and its subordinate organizations TARDEC, ARL, the Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center, the Communications- Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, the Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) and the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center; in addition to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Te Army has already used additive to produce buildings, weapons, food and robots and to repair tank parts. Yet none of that really approaches the gleaming possibility of on-demand anything.
It’s hard to overstate just how profoundly different additive is from conventional manufacturing. And that means much has to be done to better understand the
discipline, to build knowledge for design and to develop the necessary training.
THE TRAINING QUESTION While 3D printing makes additive manu- facturing seem dead simple—and if you’re talking about simple objects that you’d create on a MakerBot, maybe it is. But for the kind of solutions the Army seeks, it is anything but simple. Which makes the training all that much more important.
Te U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command and the Training and Doctrine Command have the Soldier side of the training effort, and the center of excel- lence and RDECOM have the civilian side.
Training will have to account not only for engineering in three dimensions, but also machines, materials, processes and more. “Tat’s a huge undertaking,” said Edward Flinn, director of advanced manufacturing at Rock Island Arsenal, in an interview. “We need to not only train
January-March 2019
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