Additive Manufacturing for Defense and Government Symposium

Additive Manufacturing – Revolutionizing Aerospace and Defense Innovation, Production, Logistics, and Readiness

Additive Manufacturing (unlike traditional manufacturing) is the ability to create a physical object from a digitally encoded design through the deposition of material via a 3D printing process eliminating excess material waste. This ability to exchange AM design and manufacturing capabilities via file sharing has created an enormous potential and with incredible ramifications for reducing shipping and production costs, slashing production-to-end-user cycle times, dramatically improving SWaP ratios, and significantly reducing the logistics footprint. The range of potential applications is limitless: spare parts, medical prosthetics, bioengineered human cells, armor and other force protective equipment, explosives, sensors, and perhaps eventually entire systems, containing printed circuitry, power storage and software. This carefully crafted technical symposium provides a forum for key government and industry experts who are shaping the future of additive manufacturing for defense and government to examine the latest DoD and government plans for spurring the growth of this dynamic technology. Questions and topics will include:

• How are DoD and Service manufacturing strategies being shaped by additive manufacturing?
• How is the state-of-the-science being pushed by NIST, DOE, NASA, NSF and other government efforts? What are the emerging lessons learned from early tactical deployments of 3D printing on the battlefield? Aboard ship?
• What new materials and processes are needed? What are the potential cyber security challenges and solutions?What is 4D printing?
• How will 4D printing enable future systems to evolve in response to immediate tactical stimuli? What are the latest 3D/4D printing and AM capabilities on the industry drawing board? How can you get involved?

These and many other critical questions will be examined during this Interactive General Session.