The Practical Application of Additive Manufacturing for Extreme Environments

In the automotive, aerospace, and defense industries, there is need for additively manufactured components that cannot only withstand extreme environments but to also be capable of multiple functions or enhanced capabilities. Existing material sets for additively manufactured components are often unsuitable for extreme environments, which limit their practical use and implementation. For example, organic or polymeric components are not rugged or suitable for temperature extremes. More rugged materials (metals and ceramics) can be difficult and expensive to process and are constrained in their compatibility to make composites or blends, hindering the fabrication of multifunctional structures. At MIT Lincoln Laboratory, our mission being technology in support of national security, we develop new materials sets to address shortcomings of the existing, well-established material sets. Success in this mission will facilitate not only the adoption of additive manufacturing for demanding or extreme applications, but also to provide a more far-reaching technological advantage. Specifically, this talk will highlight three distinct cases where new materials are implemented for (1) thermal, mechanical, and chemical stability extreme environments by using inorganic glass-based structures, (2) shielding of high energy particles or radiation for the localized protection of electronic components in space systems by designing composite materials consisting of materials with high and low atomic numbers, and (3) for obscuring transmission line designs in radio frequency systems using graded dielectrics. In all cases, the materials and composites were processed using direct write additive manufacturing, which features low processing temperatures and active mixing. Further, we show the ways our methods and materials outperform existing well-established materials. Due to the simplicity of our approach the consequential implications of its use, we expect the wide adoption of these materials and methods and also the increased acceptance of additively manufacture components for real applications (beyond prototyping and structural modelling), especially those in extreme environments.<br/><br/>DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.<br/>This material is based upon work supported by the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering under<br/>Air Force Contract No. FA8702-15-D-0001. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in<br/>this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Under Secretary of Defense<br/>for Research and Engineering.