Air Force researching advanced manufacturing techniques for aircraft parts replacement

  • Published
  • By Bryan Ripple
  • 88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio — The Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded a $10 million research project for refining the efficiency of Air Force aircraft part replacement to America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, located in Youngstown, Ohio.

This will be the first project under a new five-year cooperative agreement between the Air Force Research Laboratory and America Makes, which was created to help advance the U.S. 3D printing industry, also known as additive manufacturing.

“The goal of this Directed Project Opportunity is to improve the efficiency of Air Force Air Logistics Complexes in rapidly replacing parts for legacy and other military aircraft by developing, demonstrating and guiding the transition to the use of additive manufacturing and other types of related advanced manufacturing technology,” said Dr. Dennis Butcher, America Makes Program Manager.

The University of Dayton Research Institute will be the principal research leader on the project, while Youngstown State University will be the co-leader of the technical efforts. In addition to both universities, more than half of the 25 team partners, comprised of representatives of academia, industry and the Air Force, are located in Northeast Ohio. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center here and Air Force Reserve Command’s 910th Airlift Wing, located at Youngstown Air Reserve Station will also play roles in the project.

America Makes has awarded $8 million in AFRL managed funds through the cooperative agreement from the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Manufacturing and Industrial Base Technology Division, the institute said in a news release. An additional $2.87 million in matching costs has been contributed by the award project team for a total of $10.87 million in funding for the research project. Both universities are sharing the funding equally throughout the project.

In addition to Air Force officials from three Air Logistics Complexes at Robins AFB, Georgia; Hill AFB, Utah; and Tinker AFB, Oklahoma; the team will also work with several other Air Force and Department of Defense bases and depots. For example, the 910th Airlift Wing is home to DOD’s only full-time, fixed-wing aerial spray mission.

“Since depot-level maintenance for their unique aerial spray mission systems is performed at the Youngstown base, the 910th is a good candidate for the application of additive manufacturing and other advanced manufacturing techniques to support sustainment activities,” said Dr. Mary Kinsella, Additive Manufacturing Product Team leader.

In order to deal with challenges related to the sustainment of its fleet of aircraft and aircraft support vehicles and machinery, this project will focus on additive manufacturing and related advanced manufacturing techniques such as reverse engineering tools, 3D scanners, CAD software and non-destructive evaluation systems.

"AFRL values the specialized capabilities America Makes has for additive manufacturing research and development: streamlined access to national leaders in additive manufacturing research, development, and production; integration with the national additive manufacturing roadmap; rapid formation of integrated research teams; willingness to provide industry cost share; and commitment to disseminate research results for the benefit of the U.S. industrial base,” said Thomas Lockhart, director of AFRL’s Material and Manufacturing Directorate. 

"America Makes is a national asset with unique and specialized capabilities the Air Force and other government agencies will need to access to address their R&D needs well into the future.  It is in the best interests of the Air Force, in particular, and the government, in general, to ensure it maintains continued access to America Makes through an effective and efficient mechanism such as the follow-on cooperative agreement awarded by AFRL."

The America Makes Public-Private Partnership model provides unique opportunities to leverage current member investments and to better align the internal research and development activities of industrial, academic, and government partners to a national additive technology roadmap.

“The challenge lies in finding replacement parts for an aging fleet, whose planes are flying well beyond their planned service lives,” Brian Rice, head of UDRI’s multi-scale composites and polymers division said in a UDRI news release. “One of the biggest hurdles to maintaining legacy aircraft is securing out-of-production spare parts. In some cases, suppliers have gone out of business, or they will no longer support the production of spare parts for older aircraft. It’s just not profitable for them.”

The answer lies in additive manufacturing – commonly known as 3D printing – which uses a computer-driven printer to deposit successive layers of polymer, metal or other media – from the bottom up – to create simple or complicated and intricate objects, as dictated by a three-dimensional, digital design file of the object, Rice said. Additive manufacturing can be used to print actual spare parts as needed, or it can be used to create very large tooling and molds to be used in traditional forms of manufacturing.