Photo By Heather Wilburn | Fleet Readiness Center East Innovation Lab Lead Engineer Jeremy Bunting demonstrates...... read more read more
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CHERRY POINT, N.C. – When a critical need for new tooling arose for the F-35 Lightning II combat aircraft, innovative thinking and forward-leaning technology at Fleet Readiness Center East (FRCE) helped fill the gap and put 2,000 tools in aircraft maintainers’ hands within days.
At the depot’s Innovation Lab, a team of two fulfilled a request from the F-35 Joint Program Office to use additive manufacturing – commonly referred to as 3D printing – to produce an O-ring installation tool used for all three variants of the fifth-generation fighter jet. Using digital light processing, a technology that uses ultraviolet light from a digital projector to cure and harden liquid resins, the team moved from a test run to mission completion in under two weeks – less than 10% of the estimated six months procurement would have taken through traditional acquisition methods.
“This is an incredible success story for additive manufacturing, but also our ability to leverage the implementation of advanced and innovative technologies to support the fleet,” said Randall Lewis, lead of the Fleet Support Team’s Advanced Technology and Innovation (ATI) Team, which manages the Innovation Lab at FRCE. “These type of efforts are why ATI and the Innovation Lab exist, and why our mission is so very critical to our fleet and depot support efforts. Work like this – using leading-edge technology to fill an acute need – is exactly why FRC East has been designated the Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence.”
The tool has been distributed to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, along with foreign military partners, to support all variants of the F-35. The quick turnaround achieved through the use of additive manufacturing helped provide an almost immediate answer to a concern that could have otherwise been a readiness inhibitor, Lewis said.
In addition to providing urgently needed tools to the fleet as a whole, FRCE was even able to deliver tools directly to Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 14 (MALS-14) onboard Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. MALS-14 Production Control Officer Capt. Jason Moore said the initiative demonstrated the promise of using additive manufacturing to support military aviation maintenance in instances where traditional procurement processes can take significantly longer.
“These types of efforts lead to expeditious capabilities, rapid fielding and sustainment, and increased aircraft and mission readiness for all warfighters and show the potential of how a more robust additive manufacturing capability with aerospace applications can continue to benefit the service,” Moore said. “This is a win-win for FRCE and the end users.”
Innovation Lab Lead Engineer Jeremy Bunting said when the initial request came in from the F-35 Joint Program Office, he and lab technician Ken Murphy began working immediately to fulfill the order; the first step was determining which of the lab’s additive manufacturing technologies offered the most cost- and time-efficient solution. Bunting said an examination of the tool’s configuration and application suggested it could be a good use case for digital light processing. The team produced an initial batch of 20 tools, and the local F-35 Lightning Support Team at FRCE and the F-35 Joint Program Office began evaluation of the product.
Following the initial assessment, slight modifications were made to the tool’s design and the Lightning Support Team completed analysis and testing to confirm the printer’s resin medium would be chemical resistant and suitable for use in the tool’s intended environment. Now, it was time to print.
Traditional polymer additive manufacturing machines – what most people envision when they think of 3D-printing, Bunting said – use melted plastic filament and lay that filament down into a pattern. The machine works one layer at a time, one part at a time. With digital light processing, the machine cures an entire layer at once, whether there is one part or 20 on the build plate.
“With the traditional machines, if I have a part that takes two hours to build, then three of those parts takes six hours,” Bunting explained. “With the digital light processing, I did a batch of 20 and it took an hour and 15 minutes; then I did a batch of 60, which was as many as would fit on the plate, and that also took an hour and 15 minutes. That makes it extremely scalable.”
Bunting said the single order of 2,000 parts almost matched the Innovation Lab’s entire output for fiscal year 2024, in terms of raw quantities; however, using cutting-edge technology to meet fleet needs is standard procedure at the Innovation Lab.
“This job was unusual because of the quantity, but the Innovation Lab does jobs like this every day,” he said. “The Innovation Lab exists to be quick-turn and solve problems, to be very agile with additive manufacturing. So this job was unique in terms of the quantity and how we were able to leverage this newer technology, but in terms of our day-to-day business, it was just what we do.”
Demonstrating the ability to successfully produce a product quickly and on a large scale helps support the advancement of additive manufacturing as a routine solution within military aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul.
“Projects like this positively impact naval aviation's capability, readiness and lethality by broadening the use of additive manufacturing as a capability in our maintenance activities," said Robert Lessel, chief engineer and Fleet Support Teams senior executive at Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers.
“Wins like the manufacture of this O-ring installation tool produce meaningful outcomes for the fleet as we deliver aircraft material readiness faster at more affordable costs,” Lessel added. “The work is a powerful example of tackling a fleet problem with expertise and urgency. It's all about warfighting and supporting our warfighters.”
Since its inception in 2020, the Innovation Lab has made great strides in developing additive manufacturing as a capability that can be scaled up and used to address a broad range of uses. The goal is to continue applying additive manufacturing as a solution until it becomes as commonplace as traditional manufacturing is today, Bunting said.
“We already do a lot of local manufacturing at FRC East, with machining and sheet metal, and our additive manufacturing team has been working very closely with our production artisans to get them trained on this equipment,” he explained. “We want to be able to productionize additive manufacturing so we can quote it and work it just like any other job.
“My catch line is that we’re trying to make additive manufacturing ‘boring,’” Bunting continued. “It’s exciting and new right now, but I would like it to become much more routine – where additive manufacturing is just another thing an artisan works on as part of their job.”
FRCE is North Carolina's largest maintenance, repair, overhaul and technical services provider, with more than 4,000 civilian, military and contract workers. Its annual revenue exceeds $1 billion. The depot provides service to the fleet while functioning as an integral part of the greater U.S. Navy; Naval Air Systems Command; and Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers.
| Date Taken: | 06.16.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 06.16.2025 09:16 |
| Story ID: | 500682 |
| Location: | CHERRY POINT, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 117 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, FRCE Innovation Lab manufactures quick win for F-35 fleet, by Heather Wilburn, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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