Lockheed Martin Announces Partnership With Sintavia For Metal Additive Manufacturing
Metal additive manufacturing finds its place in aerospace and defense in the creation of spare parts and prototypes in a short time, which can be useful for the management of supply chains. Companies all over the world are recognizing the value of this technology and investing accordingly. In the latest example, Lockheed Martin and Sintavia have announced a collaboration to further metal 3D printing technology within Lockheed’s products.
Lockheed Martin is an aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation based in America, which employs around 155,000 people worldwide. They are now partnered with Sintavia, one of their additive manufacturing suppliers. Sintavia is a digital industrial company who offer design and manufacturing technology with a focus on sustainability. They offer heat transfer systems, propulsion systems, and power generation. As the largest pure-play additive manufacturer of advanced propulsion systems for flight and launch OEMs, Sintavia has a great deal of industry expertise and experience to offer to Lockheed Martin.
Metal additive manufacturing is used for aerospace to create prototypes and spare parts. (Photo credit: Farinia Group)
This collaboration will explore a number of additive manufacturing technologies, including laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), electron beam-directed energy deposition (Electron Beam DED), and friction stir AM. Lockheed Martin hopes to harness these technologies for the improvement of metal additive manufacturing for aerospace, building on the initiative ‘AM Forward’ from the White House. This project aims to improve small- and medium manufacturing, boost the job market, and enhance supply chains. Other initial participants are GE Aviation, Honeywell, Raytheon, and Siemens Energy.
“Sintavia and Lockheed Martin are committed to improving the capability, agility and competitiveness of the defense industrial supply base,” said Brian Neff, Sintavia’s founder and CEO. “Our partnership with Lockheed Martin seeks to identify and streamline manufacturing inefficiencies, specifically in the production of flight critical structures.”
“Lockheed Martin’s collaboration with Sintavia demonstrates our dedication to the White House’s AM Forward campaign in reducing overall operating costs and strengthening our domestic supply chain, efforts that are in line with our 21st Century Security vision,” said David Tatro, vice president for Operations Process Transformation at Lockheed Martin.
Similar projects to advance metal additive manufacturing within aerospace and defense have included Velo3D’s integrated metal solution, and a contract of £3-5 million offered by the UK Ministry of Defence to produce certified metal parts using the technology. For more information on this collaboration with Sintavia, you can find Lockheed Martin’s press release HERE.
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Cover photo credits: Lockheed Martin
