Page 11: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2023)

units that make relatively small plastic parts. The feedback technology in shipboard research use cases, but created a self- we were getting from the ? eet is that they need larger metal contained, mobile 3D metal printshop by out? tting a common parts,” said Jim Pluta, additive manufacturing (AM) program shipping container that can be put on any ship, or plugged manager at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). into any power source, such as a ? eld generator so Marines

Now the Navy has installed two different kinds of metal 3D can also have that capability,” said Capt. Jeremy Gray, NPS printers on Navy ships, with an aluminum system on the west Surface Warfare Chair for CNSP.

coast, and a stainless steel system on the east coast. On the east coast, a Phillips Hybrid Additive Manufactur-

A Xerox Elem Additive Solutions ElemX liquid metal 3D ing system arrived aboard USS Bataan (LHD 5). The Bataan printer was delivered in a container aboard USS Essex (LHD project is intended to be a permanent ? xture on the ship. 2) in July 2022, becoming the ? rst metal additive manufac- The Bataan’s equipment, installed under a joint effort between turing machine installed on a U.S. naval vessel. The ElemX Commander, Naval Surface Force Atlantic and Naval Sea Sys- printer is modular, and after operating aboard Essex during tems Command (NAVSEA) Technology Of? ce, and supported the RIMPAC 2022 multi-national ? eet exercise last summer, in design and execution by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics the CONEX box was transferred to USS Boxer (LHD 4) to Laboratory, includes the Phillips Additive Hybrid system, which continue the evaluation. integrates a Meltio3D laser metal wire deposition tool head on a

The ElemX printer was a collaboration with Commander Haas TM-1 computer numerical control (CNC) three-axis mill.

Naval Surface Force Paci? c (CNSP) and NAVSEA leverag- While both are metal printers, the ElemX platform employs ing the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) cooperative re- a fundamentally different AM process than the Philips Ad- search and development agreement (CRADA) with Xerox, ditive Hybrid system on Bataan. The ElemX printer makes which is a powerful tool to partner quickly for win/win ap- aluminum parts, while the Phillips system uses 316 stainless plied research. “The ElemX effort not only demonstrated the steel. The ElemX uses a molten metal droplet deposition,

Wasp-class amphibious assault ship

S t a r V a l l e y

USS Essex (LHD 2) onloads a 3D (307) 248-3970 [email protected]

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