SPEE3D
The Australian Army has proven it possible to 3D print and replace armoured vehicle parts in the field during an annual military exercise.
It is the latest milestone of the organisation’s trials of SPEE3D’s metal additive manufacturing technology, announced last year.
Exercise Koolendong is a bilateral military exercise between the Australian Army and the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin that takes place every year. In this year’s exercise, various components for the M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier were replaced with metal 3D printed parts produced with SPEE3D’s WarpSPEE3D machine.
During the exercise, more than a dozen M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier parts were identified, 3D printed, certified and subsequently installed on the vehicles. This trial aimed to prove metal 3D printing can produce high-quality, military-grade parts, which can also be validated and certified while in the field. Among the printed parts was a two-kilogram M113 wheel bearing cover, which is often damaged by trees as the vehicle travels through Bushland. This part was printed in just 29 minutes with SPEE3D’s cold spray metal 3D printing technology at a cost of $100 USD, with heat treatment, machining and testing all taking place in the field too.
SPEE3D
Per SPEE3D, the success of this trial, which followed a number of field trials in 2020 that resulted in over 50 case studies of printable parts, demonstrated that additive manufacturing can play an important part in the future of defence readiness.
“This is a great example of how expeditionary metal 3D printing can improve defence readiness,” commented SPEE3D CEO Byron Kennedy. “Field trials conducted in 2020 proved SPEE3D technology was deployable. This year’s trial extension was bigger, longer and more remote, making it the world’s toughest and longest metal 3D printing trial so far.”
The Australian Army announced it would be conducting trials of SPEE3D’s metal 3D printing technology back in February 2020, three months after the Australian Navy had announced their own interest in the technology. SPEE3D’s metal 3D printing process was first trialled in June 2020, with a high temperature and humidity test following in August 2020. The Army extended the programme to 2021 to verify their initial results and have gone on to test the WarpSPEE3D printer in hot and dusty conditions for three weeks, having transported the machine in a round trip over 1200km over rough terrain. SPEE3D has been helping to train the Army’s Additive Manufacturing Cell (AMC) throughout 2021, with the AMC set to explore more components that can be repaired using metal 3D printing as an alternate solution.
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