Defense Innovation: AM for Mission Readiness

July 09, 2025 | Reading time: 6 min

Forging the Future of Defense: The Power of Additive Manufacturing and Advanced Steel and Copper

The defense sector operates under immense pressure, where the readiness and equipment performance can be the difference between mission success and failure.

However, traditional manufacturing processes often struggle to keep pace, burdened by long lead times and supply chain complexities. Additive Manufacturing (AM) is emerging as a transformative solution, offering unprecedented speed, design freedom, and material capabilities to meet the stringent requirements of the defense industry.

The Bottleneck: Traditional Manufacturing in a High-Stakes World

For decades, the defense industry has relied on traditional manufacturing methods like casting, forging, and machining. While robust, these processes can present challenges when time is of the essence. The development and production of complex components, or the urgent replacement of obsolete parts for legacy systems, can involve lead times stretching from months to even years. This delay can impact everything from routine maintenance to urgent operational needs, potentially compromising mission readiness.

Key challenges include:

Extended lead times: Tooling creation, complex machining processes, and multi-stage production contribute to lengthy waiting periods for critical parts.
Supply chain vulnerabilities: Reliance on geographically dispersed or specialized suppliers can create vulnerabilities, especially in times of crisis or for parts with intermittent demand.
Cost inefficiencies for low volumes: Producing small batches of highly specialized or customized parts through conventional means is often economically prohibitive.
Design limitations: Traditional methods can restrict the complexity of part geometries, potentially limiting performance optimization.

Additive Manufacturing: Accelerating Defense Capabilities

AM enables the direct production of parts from digital models, layer by layer, altering the manufacturing timeline and capabilities:

On-demand production and reduced lead times: AM allows for parts to be produced when and where they’re needed, drastically cutting lead times from design to installation. This ensures mission readiness by getting critical components into the field faster.
Enhanced supply chain resilience: By enabling decentralized manufacturing, AM can reduce dependence on complex global supply chains, allowing for localized production closer to the point of need.
Support for legacy systems: AM excels at creating replacements for obsolete parts, even when original tooling no longer exists, simply by using scanned data or original design files.
Rapid prototyping and iteration: Designs can be quickly prototyped, tested, and refined, accelerating development cycles for new systems and components.
Freedom of design and functional integration: AM facilitates the creation of highly complex geometries, internal cooling channels, and consolidated parts that are impossible or impractical with traditional methods.

A Multi-Material Advantage for Defense

The effectiveness of AM is directly linked to the range and quality of available materials. A material-agnostic approach, equipped with a portfolio of qualified materials, is crucial for addressing the diverse challenges across different defense domains — from sea to air and land. EOS supports a wide variety of metals, polymers, and composites, each offering distinct advantages for specific applications. Key qualified materials used in the industry include:

Titanium (e.g., Ti64): Valued for its high strength-to-weight ratio and excellent corrosion resistance, Ti64 is ideal for lightweighting aircraft components, producing durable drone chassis, and creating mission-critical parts where weight savings are paramount.
Stainless steel (e.g., 316L): This versatile and durable alloy is a workhorse for a vast array of applications. Its strength and corrosion resistance make it suitable for ground vehicle components, naval hardware, and robust tooling.
Copper alloys: Pure copper (CuCP) offers exceptional thermal and electrical conductivity, making it perfect for manufacturing high-performance heat exchangers and other thermal management systems. Copper-nickel alloys (CuNi) add superior resistance to saltwater corrosion and biofouling, proving indispensable for naval applications like valve bodies, pipe fittings, and propeller components.

The EOS Advantage: Mastering AM for Extreme Environments

EOS has been at the forefront of AM technology for more than 35 years, with extensive experience supporting the aerospace and defense sectors. Our expertise is built on developing reliable, repeatable, and qualified processes for a wide range of high-performance materials critical to defense. Two key examples from our portfolio are Stainless Steel 316L and Copper-Nickel CuNi30.

Stainless Steel 316L: As one of the most trusted materials in manufacturing, 316L is known for its excellent ductility, corrosion resistance, and durability. The EOS process for 316L delivers parts with consistent, high-quality material properties, making it a reliable choice for a broad spectrum of defense applications. From robust components for ground support equipment to fixtures and fittings on naval vessels, 316L provides a cost-effective solution for producing strong, dependable parts.
Copper-Nickel CuNi30: Specifically engineered for harsh marine environments, CuNi30 is a high-strength copper-nickel alloy that offers exceptional resistance to seawater corrosion and biofouling. This makes it a critical material for the naval sector. Using AM, EOS enables the on-demand production of complex naval components such as valve bodies, pump housings, and heat exchanger parts that can withstand the rigors of the sea, extending the service life of critical systems and enhancing fleet readiness.

EOS's refined processes and deep materials science knowledge ensure that parts 3D-printed with our systems meet the stringent quality, performance, and reliability standards demanded by the defense industry.

Ready for Deployment

EOS, through its Additive Minds consulting division, provides support to accelerate AM adoption. This includes assistance with part selection, design optimization, process industrialization, and the qualification of AM parts and processes to meet defense standards.

As a strategic partner, EOS is equipped with industry-leading technology, materials expertise, and a proven track record to help defense organizations mitigate risks, accelerate innovation, and enhance mission readiness.

Explore how EOS can help you leverage the power of AM today.

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