ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation, or CAMINO, is rising to the challenge of helping Sandia National Laboratories meet its national security missions more quickly. CAMINO’s manager recently shared a couple of early wins.
First, CAMINO is playing a role in helping redesign a component for the Power Sources Technology Group by supplying several iterations of a piece part.
“It’s expensive and very difficult to get the parts. It takes four to six months of difficult machining. What CAMINO was able to do was provide parts for them in a one-week turnaround using additive manufacturing,” said Mohan Karulkar, who manages CAMINO. “The fast turnaround creates an opportunity to actually experiment with designs and try out new ideas, whereas before the process was too slow to allow meaningful innovation. What’s more, some of the new ideas were only achievable using additive manufacturing, so there was a double benefit.”
Sarah Dudley is a manager in power sources and said CAMINO has become an invaluable resource for her team and their work.
“Through a three-day hands-on problem-solving design sprint at the CAMINO facility, my team was able to attack a specific design challenge in a novel and focused way,” she said. Dudley added that a 3D-printed thermoplastic polyurethane surrogate was developed that serves as a mechanical stand-in for a difficult-to-machine insulation material. “This allowed my team to perform rapid design and test iterations related to mechanical performance in a very quick, low-cost and low-hazard way, accelerating the design cycle for war-reserve parts.”
Better designs faster
CAMINO supplied a steady stream of parts for power source applications, enabling rapid adaptation to design changes.
“That’s never been possible before,” Karulkar said. “They can now make and test hardware faster and cheaper than they ever could before.”
Dudley said CAMINO has become a solid partner.
“It’s given us the ability to move faster,” she said. “Going to the facility and putting hands and eyes on an advanced manufacturing technique allows the team to ingrain creative thinking into the design space and see firsthand the capabilities and possibilities available to them.”
Karulkar emphasized that one of CAMINO’s goals is to iterate faster.
“CAMINO is not a production facility,” he said. “We want to help broaden understanding and trust of advanced manufacturing by putting the tools in people’s hands. We want to help provide and connect people with the expertise to make their designs better. We want to teach people how to design for advanced manufacturing to better meet requirements.”
External partnerships
Sandia is working with the University of Texas at Austin to expand its current offering of advanced manufacturing instruction.
“CAMINO and Academic Programs host a cohort of Sandians at our building to attend an advanced manufacturing class virtually,” Karulkar said. “If you think about what CAMINO is, it’s advanced manufacturing with an emphasis on national security.”
Working closely with Academic Programs, Karulkar has solidified plans with the University of Texas at Austin to launch a new class on advanced manufacturing for national security next year.
“This is a class to highlight the unique aspects of national security versus, say, automotive or aerospace, that make it difficult to use advanced technologies. This is something that students struggle with when they enter our field. They are surprised to learn that advanced manufacturing isn’t widely deployed yet,” Karulkar said. “CAMINO’s facilities can host UT Austin students and faculty on visits, and our cohorts of Sandians can use CAMINO equipment as part of lab activities that are happening virtually.”
There’s also an emphasis on local partnerships.
“The most fruitful area of partnership with us in the city right now is going to be around workforce development,” Karulkar said. “Teaching people how to use and design for