SPEE3D
Phillips Federal announced they have signed an agreement with SPEE3D – an Australian company which supplies metal-based additive manufacturing (AM) technology – to acquire a new WarpSPEE3D Metal AM printer.
The WarpSPEE3D CSAM technology will be assigned to their Centre of Innovation, which is co-located at the Rock Island Arsenal’s AM Centre of Excellence. It will be used by Phillips Federal and the US Army to further develop the centre’s additive manufacturing capabilities and to create large format, parts-on-demand metal applications for the US Army.
Phillips Federal will be add the machine to the centre this year to also support activities in material exploration and research, as well as the development and manufacturing of future large-format applications and prototypes for the Army et el Armed Forces.
Phillips Corporation, Federal division, a leading service provider and manufacturing partner to the US Federal Government, first added metal AM technologies from SPEE3D in 2020 to support its Public Private Partnership (P3) and Additive Manufacturing programmes at the US Army’s Rock Island Arsenal (RIA).
John Harrison, Global Director of Phillips Additive said: “Since 2020, the unique high-speed capabilities of SPEE3D technology have proven to be an excellent addition in supporting the RIA’s manufacturing innovation objectives, and the scope of our P3 programme and the new WarpSPEE3D printer at the RIA’s Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing facility will allow us to further our scope and make cutting-edge achievements in developing large-format applications for expeditionary forces in the US.”
The WarpSPEE3D printer has been frequently used by Defence Forces for over two years for an on-demand, deployable metal manufacturing capability, and between 2020-2021, the Australian Army conducted several field trials with their WarpSPEE3D tactical printer.
In 2020, the tests resulted in over 50 case studies of printable parts, demonstrating the printers’ robust capabilities to be used in Australian bushland and in 2021 - when the programme was extended to verify initial results, along with the establishment of new field trails and the Australian Army AM Cell technicians - it was successfully proved possible to 3D print, certify, validate and replace armoured vehicles in the field, showing that AM could play a part in the future of defence readiness.
Bruce Colter, SPEE3D’s Vice President and General Manager of North America said: “ We expect the delivery of this new WarpSPEE3D printer to provide Phillips Federal and The Rock Island Arsenal with additional capabilities from our patented Cold Spray AM technology, the fastest metal 3D printing capability in the world, and WarpSPEE3D printers have demonstrated in field trails that they can make high-quality metal parts on-demand which are critical to keep military equipment and vehicles operational, and the American AM space is growing rapidly, and SPEE3D’s technology is only growing rapidly with it.”
Byron Kennedy, CEO of SPEE3D added: “We believe this expansion is an exciting opportunity for SPEE3D and DoD forces. Our smaller LightSPEE3D system has been used as part of the RIA programme with great success and with a WarpSPEE3D, Phillips Federal and The Rock Arsenal will be able to explore a wide range of large, high-quality, low-cost metal parts manufactured quickly.”
