With 3D printing playing a part in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, the U.S. Air Force has taken it one step further by organizing an entire Olympic event around the technology. Hosted by the Air Force’s Rapid Sustainment Office (RSO), the Advanced Manufacturing Olympics Event invites different participants, from additive manufacturing companies and traditional defense contractors, […]
Blockchain secures distributed additive manufacturing in the U.S. Air Force
The U.S. Air Force is collaborating with blockchain as a service (BaaS) company SIMBA Chain to enhance security in additive manufacturing. The partnership is part of the force’s Blockchain Approach for Supply Chain Additive Manufacturing Parts (BASECAMP) project. BASECAMP will use the SIMBA Chain platform to demonstrate a blockchain approach for the registration and tracking […]
US Air Force Base in Utah Creating 3D Printed Replacement Parts for F-35 Fighter Jets
The US military has not shied away from implementing modern manufacturing methods such as 3D printing, but has actually embraced the technology. In fact, the US Air Force has used 3D printing for multiple projects, including components for aircraft and fighter jets, such as the F-35. This is what’s known as a next-generation fighter, and the 388th Maintenance Group of the Hill Air Force Base in Utah recently began 3D printing specific replacement parts for the F-35. Base officials are hoping that the technology will help to lower costs and increase availability.
Many branches of the military have turned to 3D printing to make replacement parts for those very same reasons.
“We’re always driving for speed, safety and quality. But cost-effectiveness is also a priority,” said 388th MG commander Col. Michael Miles. “This new tech has great cost-avoidance potential and provides rapid repair capabilities.”
Tech Sgt. Scott Mathews, assistant manager of the 388th Maintenance Group’s Air Force Repair and Enhancement program, makes adjustments to a 3-D printer the unit is experimenting with to create pieces and parts faster and more cost-effectively. [Image: Todd Cromar]
According to Tech. Sgt. Scott Mathews, assistant manager of the 388th MG’s Air Force Repair and Enhancement Program, early returns are showing that when his shop gets in damaged parts that are able to be reproduced through 3D printing, they are then able to be introduced into the supply chain with greater speed and at lower cost.
Tech. Sgt. Mathews explained, “It’s much more cost effective for the Air Force than buying new parts.”
One of the first items the team at the 388th MG created was a small-scale replica of the F-35 fighter jet. But now they’ve moved onto 3D printing simple plastic replacement parts, such as cable splitters, fasteners, grommets, housing boxes, and wiring harnesses. Tech. Sgt. Mathews said that many areas of the shop have figured out how to make the 3D printing easier to work with by “getting away from a lot of fancy metals and getting into composites and plastics.”
F-35 [Image: Lockheed Martin]
However, the technology is still young in the shop at Hill AFB, and the unit’s airmen are using trial and error to refine things, including using computer software to make their own in-house designs. There are even signs that they could manufacture more complex parts out of stronger materials in-house one day.
“There’s one printer (where) you can print with aluminum. That opens up a whole new world of opportunities,” said Tech Sgt. Matthews. “When you look at all of the different parts we could manufacture … it just boggles the mind, the things we could (make) on base. It’s just insane.”
The first two F-35 fighter jets arrived at Hill AFB in September of 2015. But, by the end of 2019, there will be three whole fighter squadrons, made up of a total of 78 jets, on the base. The active duty 388th Fighter Wing and the reserve 419th both fly and maintain the jets, while the Ogden Air Logistics Complex on base performs maintenance on all of the F-35s. Hopefully, 3D printing can soon be used to help with all of this maintenance.
Tech Sgt. Matthews said, “There’s a sense of pride knowing you played at least a minuscule role of getting them airborne.”
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[Source: Standard Examiner]
$10,000 Air Force toilet seat covers reduced to $300 thanks to 3D printing
Following a letter from U.S. Senator, Chuck Grassley demanding justification for the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) expenditure on $10,000 military aircraft toilet seat covers, Airforce officials have announced that it will now pay $300 to produce the part thanks to 3D printing. “You’ll think: there’s no way it costs that,” said Dr. Will Roper, […]
Air Force Uses 3D Printing to Save Thousands of Dollars…On Cups
[Image: Tech. Sgt. James Hodgman]
It’s remarkable that something so small as a cup handle could be responsible for saving thousands of dollars, but cases like these are seen all the time – often in the military. Take the example of the TruClip, a radio clip that Navy personnel aboard the USS Harry S. Truman developed to replace the standard clasps, which were constantly breaking. Replacing such a small part over and over again really adds up in terms of cost when you’re ordering it from external sources, so the development of a 3D printed version, which could be created for about six cents right onboard the ship, really did save the Navy thousands of dollars, not to mention time. Now it’s the Air Force that is saving money, thanks to, yes, a cup handle among its increasing portfolio of 3D printed components.
Heating liquids aboard an aircraft requires a special kind of cup that is extremely pricey. In 2016, the 60th Aerial Port Squadron at Travis Air Force Base in California purchased 10 of the cups for a shocking total of $9,630. In 2018, the price of one hot cup went up to $1,220, resulting in a charge of $32,000 for 25 cups. You would think that, for such high cost, these cups better be virtually indestructible, but they’re not – when dropped, the handles break off easily. So rather than spending thousands of dollars on replacements every time a cup is dropped, the squadron decided to look into improving the handle so it wouldn’t break so often.
Phoenix Spark is an Air Force innovation program that is currently working on 50 projects, including the resdesign of the hot cups.
“We started working the hot cup issue in late April,” said Capt. Ryan McGuire, 60th Air Mobility Wing Phoenix Spark chief and a KC-10 Extender pilot with the 9th Air Refueling Squadron. “We have weekly meetings every Friday at noon and our meetings are open forums where Airmen can present problems and potential solutions. The hot cup problem was shared with us because the price keeps increasing. Our office was asked to see if we could produce a 3D designed handle that is stronger than the current one.”
1st Lt. Dennis Abramov, 60th APS passenger operations flight commander, brought the hot cup issue to the Phoenix Spark team.
“The cup has two plastic pieces, one on top that helps lift the lid and one on the side,” he said. “The side handle allows someone to hold the cup without burning their hand. Unfortunately, we can’t order replacement parts when the handle breaks, which requires us to purchase a whole new hot cup every time one breaks. After cross talk with our fellow port squadrons across Air Mobility Command, we learned Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, was working on developing a redesigned handle. They were considering the 3D printing option. That’s when we brought the issue to Phoenix Spark at Travis to see if we could find a solution.”
Travis Air Force Base [Released – U.S. Air Force Photograph/Heide Couch]
The goal was to create a 3D printed handle that was stronger than the one that came with the hot cup. Nicholas Wright, a 3D designer and printer who works with the Phoenix Spark team, worked on designing a new prototype.
“The process took us about a week to develop a solution for the hot cup handle from learning the software to figuring how to physically print it,’ said Wright. “We talked to air crew members about how they’d like it designed. They recommended a more ergonomic design. The reason for this is because the original handle is placed upside down so aircrews wanted a mix between comfort and strength. We achieved that in about seven days.”
The new handle is curved, making it stronger.
“The handle currently on the hot cup has a square bottom which creates a weak point on the handle so any time it is dropped, the handle splits shortly after impact,” Wright said. “Our new rounded handle reduces that weak point. The handle we designed is stronger and capable of being printed at most Air Force bases.”
3D printing’s layer-by-layer fabrication is part of what makes the new handle so strong, said Wright.
“Think of a tree that has multiple layers so it’s extremely strong in multiple directions,” he said. “The new handle has stacked layers with a solid piece around it so it’s similar to the layers of a tree.”
Over the last three years, the squadron has spent nearly $56,000 to replace broken hot cups, an incredible number that could be greatly reduced by the new design.
[Image: Tech. Sgt. James Hodgman]
“Imagine you have to replace 40 hot cups each year at ever-increasing prices,” Wright said. “It’s much cheaper for us to replace the handle on 40 cups at about 50 cents per handle rather than purchasing 40 cups for more than $1,200 per cup.”
The team shared the prototype for the new handle with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. The center is responsible for total life cycle management of Air Force weapon systems – and cups, as it turns out.
“They are working through all the processes, quality standards and materials to try and put out a playbook on how we can 3D print the handle so it’s approved to be on an Air Force aircraft,” said McGuire. “Once we get that guidance, we can print the handles at Travis.”
A cup may seem like an insignificant thing in comparison to everything else the Air Force has to focus on, but it’s certainly not insignificant monetarily, and fixing the handle frees up time and capital for more critical things.
“I’m here to help,” said Wright. “By being here, I’m supporting a cause I believe in, helping the Air Force save money and man hours. That’s important because if you save money and man hours, you can put those things toward other resources such as research and development, training and readiness.”
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[Source: DVIDS]