Read time: 17 mins.
Key highlights:
- New possibilities: AM-enabled alloys and geometries are stirring the imagination.
- Hoops and hurdles: A myriad of challenges still need to be overcome.
- A prayer and a promise: How the progress of RAPID-e, Project TAMPA & JAMMEX will see AM make its mark.
This article was first published via the Additive Insight newsletter on February 27th, 2025.
It’s 25th May, 1982. The SS Atlantic Conveyor is nearing its destination when it’s stopped in its tracks.
British and Argentinian forces are contesting a dispute over the sovereignty of the Falklands Islands, with the SS Atlantic Conveyor deployed to transport 11 aircraft vehicles, several trucks, multiple floating rubber fuel tanks, water desalination equipment, generators, munitions, and several shipping containers full of specialist spare parts across the Atlantic Ocean.
But before it reaches land, two air-launched anti-ship missiles come crashing into the port quarter of the vessel. A fire is ignited, engulfing the entire ship. It destroys nearly everything on board and takes 12 lives. The SS Atlantic Conveyor sinks three days later.
Naturally, the human losses are the ones we mourn, the ones that bring into perspective the harsh reality of warfare. And its futility is even more pointed in an event like this because the people weren’t the target. It was the cargo.
Those working in defence supply chain and logistics were reminded of the risks associated with the physical transportation of parts and equipment 40 years on when Russia invaded Ukraine. In February 2022, satellite images captured a 35-mile stationary line of Russian cargo vehicles, carrying food, fuel, ammunition, and parts. At one end, a vehicle had been attacked, at the other one had broken down, and the thousands of soldiers, and the load they were carrying, were now sitting ducks.
Alex Champion of the UK Ministry of Defence told these stories at last year’s TCT 3Sixty, noting: “There are massive disadvantages to carrying spare parts in huge quantities on the battlefield. Whilst there are people in defence that definitely want bigger trucks, lighter trucks, trucks that can carry more stuff [to enhance the supply chain], if we can move away from a position where we are carrying physical items of logistic inventory, there will be a significant benefit to that.”
Champion being the Project Manager for Additive Manufacturing (AM) at the MOD, and TCT 3Sixty being the UK’s premier AM event, you can see where this is going.
So, how much progress is being made in defence when it comes to the implementation of AM and digital part inventories? We talked to several industry experts to find out.
Scope in, scope out
Though the defence sector is ever-dependant on governmental departments and organisations – prone to moving slowly and adopting a ‘wait-and-see’ approach when it comes to technological innovations – Joern Brauer, the Business Coordinator for Additive Manufacturing at the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), would describe the understanding of AM in the defence sector as ‘very mature.’
Some NATO nations have more experience in applying the technology than others, he acknowledges, but NATO-wide collaboration is helping to improve overall adoption. And the motivators are many.
As Brian Kaplun, a Lockheed Martin Fellow, puts it, “There are designs, concepts and platforms that have lived on drawing boards and computer screens but have been beyond the scope of the company’s capabilities.” Until now. Lockheed has so far leveraged additive manufacturing to support the development of its Juno spacecraft, its F-35 and F-22 combat aircraft, missile systems such as Mako, hypersonics, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, and electro-optical targeting system sensors. And there is more to come.
“Advances in materials, geometries, coatings and thermal management are now fair game and squarely in the new realm of the possible,” he told TCT. “With the demands of modern warfare, our products are now flying higher, faster and exposed to more extreme environments than ever before. New and different geometries, materials and solutions need to be developed at a pace to match a more challenging geo-political reality.”
