Sciaky, Inc., a subsidiary of Phillips Service Industries, Inc., announced that its Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM™) technology helped International Submarine Engineering (ISE), Ltd. cut significant time and cost from the production of a titanium Variable Ballast (VB) tank versus the traditional manufacturing process.
ISE approached Sciaky after the closure of its former supplier, an overseas titanium forging facility that produced propellant tanks for the Russian space program. ISE did not want to risk further delays in their exploration plans, so they reached out to Sciaky, after learning that Sciaky had 3D printed titanium propellant tanks for Lockheed Martin Space Systems in 2015.
The engineers and project management team at Sciaky immediately put together an aggressive plan to produce a new titanium VB tank for ISE, using Sciaky’s patented EBAM 3D printing process. In the end, the American company helped its Canada-based client reduce production time from 16 weeks to 8 weeks, as well as reduce overall costs as compared to retooling with a new forging supplier. In addition, the VB tank created with the EBAM process passed the same vigorous qualification testing as the tank previously created with the forging process.
The titanium VB tank is a sub-system of ISE’s Arctic Explorer Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) class of vehicles.
The VB tank 3D printed with Sciaky’s EBAM process will be installed on board a new Arctic Explorer AUV that is scheduled to be delivered to the University of Tasmania in the spring of 2017. This new Explorer AUV will be deployed in Antarctica after extensive trials and training operations.