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Applications of Additive Manufacturing in the Marine Industry

Conference Paper · September 2016

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.29930.31685

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 Proceedings of PRADS2016
4th – 8th September, 2016
Copenhagen, Denmark

Applications of Additive Manufacturing in the Marine Industry

Jason D. Strickland, Ph.D.1)
1)
NSWC Carderock, United States

ate in a harsh and corrosive environment. It is these

Abstract components that are ultimately assembled into offshore
platforms, and various ship classes. Each system and
No single processing technique developed in the modern subsystem is comprised of potentially thousands of
digital-industrial era has as much potential to reshape how piece parts. Ultimately each system is only as reliable
items are designed and constructed as Additive Manufacturing as the “weakest” system portion. In addition to high
(AM) technologies. The construct of Additive Manufacturing,
part counts and corrosive environments; marine systems
or industrial-scale 3D printing, is slowly emerging from the
shadows of university laboratories and beginning to demon- are subjected to dynamic loading profiles in addition to
strate noticeable capability. Originally relegated to the the normal force of gravity and system generated load-
development of small piece parts and desk models, AM is ing. This means that any new marine component needs
rapidly developing a robust portfolio of ever larger items. It to exhibit the following attributes: compatible of inte-
would seem that it is only a matter of time before the marine gration with existing components, capable of providing
heavy industry can benefit from this advanced manufacturing an acceptable level of environmental tolerance, and
technique. Design improvements due to the “additive” nature strong enough to allow for commensurate loading with-
of manufacturing items layer by layer vice traditional “sub- in the elastic material limits.
tractive” machining processes, can be realized from reduction
Recently additive manufacturing development has ad-
in waste products, novel geometric configurations, and the
potential of truly integral subsystems embedded within the dressed a broad spectrum of items from spare parts to
components. This new production flexibility could revolution- major systems. The construct of parts on demand is not
ize the design experience and challenges the status quo in new. In fact it is the underlying tenant of Just-In-Time
every major discipline. philosophies. To this end the US Navy has deployed
3D printers for afloat manufacturing of spare parts
Keywords (Kenney, 2013). Other US Navy activities are underway
to determine the effectiveness and quality of parts gen-
Additive Manufacturing; 3D Printing; Advanced Con- erated afloat in an additive construct (Freedberg, 2014).
struction; Digital Construction If these parts can obtain approval for afloat and inter-
mediate maintenance use, this would dramatically alter
Introduction the maintenance of long deployment marine assets.
It is the intent of this paper to analyze the current state With regards to major systems, Printed cars (Local
of the art with regards to AM and then discuss how this Motors, 2015) and Aerial Drones (Palermo, 2015) are
technology may be employed in a maritime context. being constructed with 75% and 80% AM components
While AM is a broad moniker for several distinct types respectively. While it will likely be decades before the
of applications, the American Society for Testing and marine industry obtains percentages such as these for
Materials (ASTM) group “ASTM F42 – Additive Man- large marine assets; smaller marine applications are
ufacturing” codification will be employed. These AM achievable, by analogy to the preceding systems, with
types are as follows: 1) Material Extrusion, 2) Powder the current technology. This begins to suggest that large
Fusion, 3) Material Jetting, 4) Binder Jetting, 5) Energy marine assets could begin to develop and field subsys-
Deposition, 6) Vat Photo-polymerization, and 7) Sheet tems (piping, ventilation, habitability support) with a
Lamination. Each of these techniques will be reviewed relatively high AM content. Meanwhile small marine
and assessed for maritime utilization. assets can begin to expect similar metrics for AM con-
tent as reported for automobiles and aircraft.
Mainstream AM The above discussion simply takes a current process and
The critical question to consider is if additively manu- assesses how AM may augment the management of the
factured components are resilient enough for an indus- required maintenance and the construction process. The
trial, marine application. Let’s look at the demands of exciting and novel aspect that AM brings to the fore-
the industrial marine environment and several recent front is the potential to change the design paradigm.
developments before addressing this question. Imagine the construct of embedded sensors (Li, 2001)
Regarding the industrial marine environment it is domi- and how that technology would alter the design path.
nated by complex and ever larger components that oper- The potential for integral circuitry and sensors within a
component opens a myriad of new design aspects that rial.
have yet to be fully considered. With one eye on the This technology introduces new material into
future let’s examine the current state of the art and the the possible construction base. Most notably,
techniques that currently comprise AM. metal components can be fabricated with these
techniques. Copper, Steel, or Titanium can all
Production and Product be used as a base material, in addition to the
The American Society for Testing and Materials thermoplastics highlighted in the previous sec-
(ASTM) group “ASTM F42 – Additive Manufacturing” tion. In fact any material that can be powder-
(ASTM International, 2016) has identified seven dis- ized and heated to a melting point can be em-
tinct AM processes. Each AM process will be ad- ployed. These techniques are being evaluated
dressed in turn. A brief description of the technique by NASA (Greenemeier, 2012) and SpaceX
mechanics will be followed with a discussion of the (Space X, 2014) for astro-nautical applications
types of materials each process is capable of producing. particularly in rocket motor components.
These components would be a direct replace-
Material Extrusion ment for systems that are typically cast molded
Material Extrusion or Fused Filament Fabrica- parts.
tion (F3) uses an articulate deposition head to Material Jetting
extrude a molten filament that adheres to adja-
cent material and rapidly cools. Thus items Material jetting is analogous to three dimen-
can be built layer by layer. This technique is sional inkjet printers, “Multiple print heads jet
also known as Fused Deposition Modeling material simultaneously to create each layer
(FDM) as trademarked by Stratasys (stratasys, and UV light is then used to cure the layers”
2016); Material Extrusion is capable of con- (Virginia Tech, 2016). This is a novel ap-
structing complex geometries with the assis- proach, when compared to the two preceding
tance of filler or support materials. This is re- methodologies discussed. However since the
quired since gravity is the principle restraint of construction material is not a solid as in the
the filament until cooled. prior examples, new limitations are introduced.
These systems use thermoplastics such as acry- “As material must be deposited in drops, the
lonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), high-impact number of materials available to use is limited.
polystyrene (HIPS), thermoplastic polyure- Polymers and waxes are suitable and common-
thane (TPU), high-density polyethylene ly used materials, due to their viscous nature
(HDPE) and aliphatic polyamides (nylon) to and ability to form drops.” (Loughborough
produce the desired end items. These base ma- University, 2016b)
terials are typically utilized with injection and Typical materials utilized in material jetting in-
vacuum molding techniques to end products. clude thermoplastics, silicones, and rubber like
These traditional techniques produce a high material. Wax products can be utilized to cre-
quality and relatively inclusion free product ate molds for castings. As expected the proper-
when compared to the F3 product. Since the ties for these vary widely (stratasys, 2015).
F3 process layers circular filaments, interstitial Similar to F3, supporting material is required
voids are introduced within the material. for overhangs and cantilevers within the work
These voids create porosity and reduced part piece.
densities when compared to traditionally manu- Binder Jetting
factured components.
Binder Jetting also known as powder bed print-
Powder Fusion ing is most analogous to the Powder Bed Fu-
“The Powder Bed Fusion process includes the sion. “The binder jetting process uses two ma-
following commonly used printing techniques: terials; a powder based material and a binder.
Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), Electron The binder acts as an adhesive between powder
beam melting (EBM), Selective heat sintering layers.” (Loughborough University, 2016a)
(SHS), Selective laser melting (SLM) and Se- This is the principle difference. Instead of
lective laser sintering (SLS).” (Loughborough welding the powderized metal via localized la-
University, 2016c) Regardless of the name the ser or electron beam, the metal particles are
technique is similar. A base material dust or glued or laminated. These parts can be post
powder is welded together with an electron processed to improve the overall mechanical
beam or laser (Bello, 2015). The laser moves properties but the use of an adhesive can create
systematically across a bed of powdered mate- some interesting second order effects.
rial, welding the desired points in order to cre- The most notable is the inherent porosity that is
ate the desired geometry. This technique does present in a binder jet created part vice a tradi-
not require the use of filler materials to support tional cast or machined component. Virginia
overhangs and cantilevered sections. Produc- Tech “however, is working on testing a hypoth-
tion times are related to the work piece cooling esis that a nanosuspension binder can be used
rates which is a function of size and base mate- to fill these interstitial voids in the part bed in
 order to increase part density and bond neigh- can even cast directly from printed patterns us-
boring powder particles during the sintering ing QuickCast® technology.” (3D Systems,
process.” (Krassenstein, 2015) The capability 2013) It seems the largest challenge would be
to use metals, polymers, and ceramics as base the management of the photo reactive resin.
materials create a myriad on new options that An expiration date is largely assumed due to
could affect the marine industry. Some of the inadvertent exposure with the surrounding en-
metal base materials “are currently intended for vironment. Tested material tensile strengths
applications in industries such as oil & gas, tool ranging from 38-52 MPa can be built these ma-
& die, and energy in applications such as drill- terials have 15-21% of the strength of A60 car-
ing and pump components, molds, and dies.” bon steel (3D Systems, 2015).
(Sher, 2015)
Sheet Lamination
Energy Deposition
“The construction principle, only the outer con-
Energy deposition is often confused with elec- tours of the parts are cut, and the sheets can be
troplating. These techniques may produce sim- either cut and then stacked or stacked and then
ilar results but are accomplished by dramatical- cut. These processes can be further categorized
ly different processes. Direct Energy Deposi- based on the mechanism employed to achieve
tion “(DED), on the other hand, typically uses bonding between layers: (a) gluing or adhesive
a linear heat input of tens to hundreds of J mm- bonding, (b) thermal bonding processes, (c)
1
and a layer thickness of "0.3–1 mm, and heat clamping, and (d) ultrasonic welding.”
transfer from the molten metal pool is con- (Gibson, Rosen, & Strucker, Sheet Lamination
trolled both by conduction through the compo- Processes, 2010) The bonding mechanism
nent and attached baseplate as well as forced preference is driven by the base material that is
convection from the shielding gas and powder utilized and the desired end product utilization.
delivery nozzles.” (Carroll, Palmer, & Beese, For example gluing and adhesives are typical
2015). This is very similar to arc welding. poor performers in high temperature applica-
While electroplating works on the theory of tions.
galvanic potential the work piece is the cathode This is essentially composite construction with
in the couple and the sacrificial anode in con- which the marine industry has adopted for the
junction with the electrolyte becomes the plat- pleasure craft and small boat market. Similar
ing. This is often referred to as electrochemi- to fiberglass construction techniques, the layer-
cal plating. ing of anisotropic materials in varying direc-
This technique is only suitable for metals given tions creates a stronger laminate material and
its similarity to plasma arc welding. The base allows for extensive customization options.
material that is being plated or deposited upon Thermoplastics, paper, ceramics, and metal
will also need to be able to survive the process. foils are typical feeder materials for this pro-
This does not currently seem to be a main- cess (Custom Part Net, 2009). While this tech-
stream approach to additive manufacturing nique allows for a multitude of input materials
based upon the literature review completed for in all cases these objects are subject to shear
this paper. failures due to the stratified construction meth-
odology.
Vat Photo-polymerization
“Photopolymerization processes make use of Conclusion
liquid, radiation-curable resins, or photopoly- Additive Manufacturing has developed a tremendous
mers, as their primary materials. Most photo- amount in a relatively short period of time. In fact the
polymers react to radiation in the ultraviolet demonstration of astro- and aeronautical applications
(UV) range of wavelengths, but some visible are tremendously encouraging. However within the
light systems are used as well. Upon irradia- short term the use of additive manufacturing for the
tion, these materials undergo a chemical reac- industrial marine environment will continue to be lim-
tion to become solid.” (Gibson, Rosen, & ited. Even with limited applicability to the maritime
Stucker, Vat Photopolymerization Processes, industry at large. There is still a tremendous potential
2014). Obviously precision is critical when for discrete applications of the technology within the
you’re constructing an item from a vat or tube major subsystems of a vessel. The most notable would
of the raw material. In this way it is synony- be in the areas of spare parts and tooling. However
mous with powder bed fusion and binder jet- substantial technological issues will still need to be
ting. The excess material that has not been ex- addressed before the mass acceptance and utilization of
posed to the “activation” agent remains viable AM afloat can be realized. The most notable of these is
for the next project. Stereolithography is an- a moving frame of reference; all of the aforementioned
other common name for vat polymerization. techniques rely on the application of gravity to assist in
This technique is capable of producing a wide the construction process. While additive manufacturing
variety of end products that exhibit “ABS-like can build a wide variety of products in a controlled and
toughness to polycarbonate-like clarity. You static environment the use of such techniques afloat
creates questions about the viability of the process. This Gibson, I., Rosen, D., & Stucker, B. (2014). Vat
should not eliminate AM from consideration for the Photopolymerization Processes. In Additive
marine industry. However it does seem that at this time Manufacturing Technologies (pp. 63-106).
it will be contained to construction and repair facilities
New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-
or platforms with little to no relative motion.
2113-3_4
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