Active Duty Training For Support of Navy's Additive Manufacturing Strategy

Abstract

Additive manufacturing has recently gained the attention of multiple stakeholders, including those in the advanced manufacturing industry, research and government labs, academia, and the Navy community. Various efforts within the Navy focus on studying the best way for parts to be built and repaired for marine and naval vessels. Rapid manufacturing of spare components is particularly important for sailors, especially while deployed on warships, as they often do not have timely access to spare parts from the supply chain. For that purpose, a multidisciplinary team of engineering and education faculty have developed a series of workshops to train on-duty sailors in designing, testing, reverse engineering, and printing parts needed for their daily operations. The workshop has modules focused on rapid prototyping, reverse engineering, computer aided design, material testing, product data management, and product lifecycle management. The Office of Naval Research Workforce Development program funds this program.