Chinese warship uses 3D printer to quickly repair stainless steel parts
Last month, the Americans just made a plastic panel with a 3D printer on the International Space Station in an attempt to provide parts for a spacecraft far away from the ground; this month, the Chinese Navy’s destroyer has used metal parts repaired by the ship’s 3D printer. At present, the Chinese People's Liberation Army has begun to fully apply 3D printing, a cutting-edge industrial technology, to contribute to more convenient equipment support.
According to a report by "Liberation Army Daily" on January 6, after New Year's Day, when a warship of a certain naval destroyer detachment entered the port, the drive gear of the twisted rope suddenly broke and was unable to drop anchor quickly. In an emergency, the maintenance personnel of the electromechanical department quickly unloaded the damaged gear and went into the mobile shelter located at the stern to repair the gear. Soon, the damaged gear was repaired.
"This is due to the successful application of additive remanufacturing technology." Ren Yalun, the value changer of the battleship's electromechanical department, told reporters: "It is like a mini-processing workshop, which can quickly repair and manufacture common and even non-standard parts."
Walking into the mobile shelter, the reporter saw computers, melting and casting equipment, molding machines, and necessary materials for additive remanufacturing such as aluminum alloy and stainless steel powder in the cabin. Through a large number of 3D data models of spare parts stored in the computer, the molding machine can quickly repair damaged parts according to the model, and some simple parts can be manufactured on-site, which greatly improves the efficiency of equipment support in wartime.
"The principle is similar to that of today's popular 3D printing technology." Xu Binshi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told reporters that the technology has now passed the headquarters review and entered the military equipment support system.
Earlier, Chinanews.com reported on the deeds of Yang Qingxun, a veteran of the Chinese Navy’s Harbin ship electromechanical equipment. It was mentioned that when the Harbin ship was ordered to carry out the escort mission in the Gulf of Aden, a bearing weighing 25 kilograms on the battleship’s diesel engine broke and the main engine suddenly failed to start. In order to repair the main engine, Yang Qingxun made a bearing similar to the original according to the drawings. After more than 7 hours of debugging, the engine restarted, avoiding the warship from encountering danger.
Judging from the content of the "Liberation Army Daily" report, the 3D printing system in the battleship maintenance cabin is mainly made of aluminum alloy and stainless steel, which can accurately repair and process various metal parts with complex shapes. In the future, repairing or even copying parts such as diesel engine bearings can be done by 3D printers on warships, greatly reducing the intensity of repairing parts by personnel from the electromechanical department on warships.