Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore Developing Rapid Qualification Framework for Maritime 3D Printing

The Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore, along with the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), have announced they’re collaborating to develop a framework for digitally-based rapid qualification of maritime parts made with additive manufacturing (AM). In a project backed by Singapore’s Maritime Innovation and Technology Fund, MPA and ABS will partner with the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology and shipbuilder/marine services firm Mencast Marine to develop the technology.

According to the partners, the application that SIMTech researchers create will be tested by use-cases that Mencast comes up with. Down the road, two big beneficiaries of the R&D work could be Singapore maritime AM firm Pelagus 3D — a joint venture between steel giant thyssenkrupp and maritime services provider Wilhelmsen — and Gulf region service bureau Immensa, which announced a partnership with Pelagus 3D back in May.

In a press release, Dr. Gu Hai, VP of Technology at ABS, said, “AM is commonly pitched as the solution to on-demand manufacturing, but a ‘next-day’ approval remains a practical challenge. This novel method of model-based qualification is a promising approach for the rapid qualification of an AM part, potentially addressing such challenges associated with the qualification of AM applications which could lead to increased adoption of the technology within maritime.”

The MPA’s assistant chief executive for industry and transformation, Kenneth Lim, said, “MPA is glad to support the model-based qualification project by ABS, SIMTech, and Mencast, with the Maritime Innovation and Technology Fund. The project could potentially reduce the business costs and expedite the approval and certification of AM parts. Building on the success of MPA’s joint industry program for ABS’s participation from earlier AM JIP projects, MPA is committed to collaborating with industry partners, such as ABS, to grow Maritime Singapore’s AM ecosystem.”

Since Singapore is the world’s largest transshipment port and has long had one of or the highest trade to GDP ratios in the world, anything that Singapore does on an industrial level is a leading market signal for the global economy. Thus, the city-state’s growing interest in AM for maritime applications strongly suggests the growing interest in AM for maritime globally.

Additionally, even as the AM industry’s impatience with not yet having gotten rich continues to mount, we’re nonetheless seeing increasing interest in rapid qualification applications for AM. Since qualification is still the biggest barrier to accelerating adoption, this suggests that consensus is forming around the need to address that problem, and how to address it.

Maritime may be one of the biggest catalysts for actually solving that problem, as the US Navy continues to be the most successful current driver of AM adoption, and continues to pour money into the industry. Big ideas need big projects to get off the ground, and ensuring the health of manufacturing for the maritime industry may just be that project.