US national lab cuts part lead times with additive manufacturing at new centre
Sandia National Laboratories has shared early results from CAMINO, its Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation, which opened on February 12 with the NNSA and the Kansas City National Security Campus. According to CAMINO manager Mohan Karulkar, additive manufacturing delivered parts to an internal team in one week, where machining takes four to six months. For the Power Sources Technology Group, a printed thermoplastic polyurethane surrogate replaces a costly insulation material with a long lead time, and new iterations take 12 hours instead of 12 weeks. Karulkar stresses that CAMINO is not a production facility. Its role is to give engineers direct access to equipment and training in design for additive processes. Sandia also plans a course with The University of Texas at Austin on advanced manufacturing for national security next year. The report also cites the Defense Logistics Agency, which replaced machined test fixtures with printed polymer ones. The article signals a push to shorten development cycles for war-reserve parts in defence programmes.