High-Flyers: IE Talks To Essentium About Its US Air Force Contract News broke earlier this week that US-based additive manufacturing company Essentium had signed a contract for the “development and deployment” of 3D printing within the US Air Force (USAF) and National Guard Bureau.
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he contract was part of a $550 million Strategic Financing Initiative by USAF to “identify and advance the ‘big bet’ technologies”. Some of the technologies being bet on include Augmented Reality contact lenses, swarm military satellites, AI/ Data Fusion approaches to human-machine interfaces and 3D Printing. A technology that has, in many ways, become emblematic of Industry 4.0 - from construction to healthcare to space tech - 3D printing, or Additive Manufacturing (AM), has made an indelible mark on virtually all sectors and looks certain to become a staple in manufacturers’ toolkits for the foreseeable future. Industry Europe’s Steve Gislam caught up with Elisa Teipel, Chief Development Officer and Co-founder of Essentium to find out just how the company and its unique High Speed Extrusion (HSE) 3D Printing Platform can benefit the world’s largest air force.
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Industry Europe: Additive manufacturing is fairly well established now as a technology. In what ways can it drive development for the US Air Force specifically?
IE: What kind of cost savings can USAF expect to see? Obviously, each component is different, but do you have any ballpark figures for this?
Elisa Teipel: The big push is in the area of sustainment and the lifecycle management of the ageing aircraft that it has in its fleet. The sustainment effort is huge because many of these planes have been in service for more than 50 years and the original manufacturers of the equipment are either no longer in business or no longer making the specific parts. This means that it’s expensive and can take a long time – six months, 12 months, sometimes even longer. No company really wants to make ones or twos of a component, which is where industrial AM, like Essentium’s HSE 3D Printing Platform, comes in. As a technology, it can really help the sustainment and management of the older aircraft.
ET: It really depends on the material and the size of the part, and so on. The cost saving can be anywhere from five to ten times the price for each piece – and is made up to 15 times faster – than using traditional manufacturing methods. IE: What will be the impact that the introduction of the technology has on jobs, directly and indirectly inside and connected to the US Air Force? ET: There are two ways of thinking on this issue. One is that AM will become just another tool in a machine shop. Something that airmen or engineers can use for ground support, tooling or just in general as another tool in the shop.
