Navy Beefs Up 3D Printing Efforts With New 'Print the Fleet' Program.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.--In an inconspicuous building on the Dam Neck Annex is the entrance to what many here call HEL--not a fiery netherworld, but the Harsh Environment Lab where Navy scientists and engineers are developing cutting edge technologies, including 3D printing.

The work being done at HEL marks the first Navy-wide, consolidated effort to bring 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, to the service. Officials hope the technology could be used to one day print spare parts on the fly or even manufacture advanced weaponry such as unmanned aerial vehicles.

Three-D printing, while invented in the 1980s, has been a news generator for the past several years. The method counters traditional manufacturing--which takes a material and subtracts from it--by instead adding substances, usually metals or plastics, to create an object. Scientists and engineers have used the technology as a way to manufacture everything from food to parts for fighter jets.

"When advanced manufacturing and 3D printing become widely available, we envision a global network of advanced fabrication shops supported by sailors with the skill sets and training to identify problems and build and make products," said Vice Adm. Phil Cullom, deputy chief of naval operations for fleet readiness and logistics. "In some ways, sailors with this expertise could be considered military MacGyvers that help us reduce costs and solve logistics problem on the fly," he said.

At HEL, most of the 3D printing work revolves around polymer-based substances. Two printers are located in house where items such as oil caps and medical supplies have been printed, said Jim Lambeth, additive manufacturing lead at Combat Direction Systems Activity Dam Neck, where HEL is based.

The work being done is all part of the Navy's "Print the Fleet" effort dedicated to introducing sailors to 31) printing and brainstorming new ideas, he said. "Really what the project aims to do is develop procedures and policies for printing parts, how to qualify the parts, deliver the parts ... and how to use these printers," Lambeth said.

Users need only create or download a computer-aided design, or CAD, blueprint to print off a part or trinket, he said.

Print the Fleet began out of the Chief of Naval Operations' Rapid Innovation Cell (CRIC)--a group of junior-level officers who help identify and field emerging technology. Lt. Ben Kohlmann, Print the Fleet project manager and a founding member of the CRTC, started the effort in March of 2013.

"The Navy at large didn't really have a program...