Ship Vibration Mitigation for Additive Manufactruring Equipment

The overall goal of this STTR Phase I project is to develop a concept to mitigate the effects of motion/vibration for a shipboard material extrusion additive manufacturing (AM) system.  NAVSEA has been installing advanced manufacturing equipment, including 3D printers, onboard ships in support of shipboard operations and to evaluate performance of the equipment in shipboard environments and in response to Fleet demand.  However, the performance of the equipment and quality of fabricated parts is impacted by shipboard high-frequency vibrations which limit shipboard printing applications, especially higher criticality applications.  Advanced Technology and Research Corporation (ATR) has teamed with Michigan Technological University (MTU) to develop a model-based Vibration Mitigation System (VMS) to support the Navy to overcome this challenge and bring the AM capability to ships.