I025 - Submission for Russell Egnor Media Awards - Writing - Feature - Michael Brayshaw, NNSY Lead Public Affairs Specialist - 3D Printing - Released 4/1/14

1. 14 Service to the Fleet, April 2014
So you’ve seen the headlines how 3D printing, also known
as additive manufacturing, has changed the way products
are envisioned and created on a global scale. But what you
might not know is how additive manufacturing is helping
Norfolk Naval Shipyard innovate in and improve on its abil-
ity to service the Fleet.
Ranging from ship alterations, to determining how to best
execute a hull replacement on USS La Jolla (SSN 701), to
identifying methods to overhaul the new Gerald Ford-class of
aircraft carriers, the NNSY Rapid Prototype Lab’s 3D printer
is at the forefront of pioneering best practices in executing ship
maintenance.
“When engineers have a new design to try, instead of get-
ting a whole piece made out of metal or plastic by
the toolmakers or machinists, they can
say, ‘pop this in the 3D printer.’ That’s
the purpose of additive manufactur-
ing—try the design out, see how it’s
going to fit up, and then we move onto
the manufacturing process,” said Bill
Harrell, Code 100PI Rapid Prototype
Program Lead. “If someone says, ‘I need
to see how that motor’s going to fit up
on top of that pump housing to see if the
clearances are good, or that the bolt holes are
going to line up, or to see if the concept is going
to look good . . . 3D printing is perfect.”
The Rapid Prototype Lab’s 3D printer adds layer upon
layer of plaster polymer to build a solid project you can touch, hold and
study. “We take a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) draw- ing and transfer it to
a laptop which then transfers the parameters and the dimensions to the 3D printer and
pretty much tells it what to print. The printer manufactures the part, the part goes to a cleaning
station where it’s treated, and you’ve got your 3D part,” explained Harrell.
Shipyard products produced on the printer take anywhere from a few minutes—think a
NNSY commemorative coin made out of plaster polymer instead of metal—to several hours,
such as a multi-piece pipe closure device to quickly secure exposed pipes. For the larger scale
A 3D printed car!
A 3D printed gun?
A 3D printed edible Oreo!?
By Michael Brayshaw, Code 1160
Public Affairs Specialist
A 3D scale model for training
(Photo by Shayne Hensley,
Shipyard Photographer)

2. Service to the Fleet, April 2014 15
jobs, the 3D printer effectively makes wooden and metal
shipyard mockups—mockups that ate material and
swallowed manhours—a thing of the past.
For the complex availability on USS La Jolla begin-
ning in spring 2015, the Rapid Prototype Lab produced
3D prints of the hull to help examine how to best re-
place it. “It’s a good hands-on conversation piece, to
proactively start talking and seeing how we’re going
to cut the middle of the boat out,” said Harrell. When
shipfitters get around the table and start looking at it and
talking, they might ask, ‘how’s that going to work?’ and
catch some things [that still need to resolved].”
The 3D printer is already helping to determine ways
of servicing the new Gerald Ford-class of carriers.
“Rather than making something out of metal, which
would probably take two to three months just to see
fit-up purposes, we print out a 3D part and we can put
it on a mockup,” said Harrell. “It’s really Rapid Proto-
typing—proving a concept for actual use. Any type of
savings can play into this—there’s time, there’s material
money, and labor.”
For NNSY’s Nuclear Engineering and Planning De-
partment (Code 2300), the lab created models of ship
alterations for ballistic missile submarines undergoing
availability, ultimately saving both money and time.
“What they’d do is build this mockup out of wood, and
then train with it for the riggers,” said Don Gauthier,
Rapid Prototype Lab Sheet Metal Mechanic. “They
figured this came to $11,000 and they wanted a cheaper
way to do it. So we printed them a little model. The rig-
gers and engineers all got together at the desk to figure
out how to rig it in and found out it wouldn’t fit. So
we had to do another print that would fit, it saved them
$3,000 in rework. They looked at it, figured out how
to maneuver it and rig it in. The piece was in an hour,
rather than a couple days.”
The 3D printer is ensuring a promising future for Con-
tinuous Training and Development at the shipyard. The
lab has produced a prototype tool for Shop 71 (Painting/
Blasting) to use as a continuous training and develop-
ment aid for the Navy’s new process of removing paint
by laser. The training tool, looking like a hybrid of a
handgun and a DustBuster, is estimated to save $3,000
in training man hours and is expected to increase first-
time quality. “They wanted something to train with
rather than holding the laser itself. So we built them a
model of it, and they trained with it in the shop,” said
Gauthier.
NNSY was the first of the four public shipyards to
have a 3D printer and “really started getting the buzz
out,” according to Harrell; since then, Pearl Harbor
Naval Shipyard purchased an identical 3D printer,
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has several 3D printers and
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard has a couple 3D print-
ers in their engineering departments. “You can see,
down the road in five years, where NNSY Engineering
and Planning would have their own prototyping area,”
said Harrell. “It’s starting to change the mindset of
how we think as a shipyard. We’re not just a shipyard
[of personnel] that goes in a bilge to get dirty and turn
wrenches; we’re skilled craftsmen who want to stay up
with technology.”
Curtis Gent, of the
Rapid Prototype
Center, removes
finished material from
the 3D printer (Photo
by Shayne Hemsley,
Shipyard
Photographer)