The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has awarded Colibrium Additive, a subsidiary of GE Aerospace, a $31 million contract as part of its Additive Manufacturing Capability initiative. The program targets a persistent challenge in military aviation: accelerating the testing, qualification, and certification of metal additively manufactured components to keep fleet aircraft mission-ready.
Building the Materials Foundation: Six MPCs in Scope
At the heart of the agreement is the development of six metal alloy Material Process Combinations (MPCs), structured datasets capturing the physical and mechanical properties of specific alloys under defined manufacturing conditions. Colibrium Additive will optimize process parameters, consolidate material and process specifications, and establish design allowables for all properties tested.
The work expands two existing alloy packages, AlSi7Mg and IN718, while introducing 17-4PH and 7050-RAM2 into a portfolio that already includes 316L, CoCr, and Ti64. A dedicated thin-wall fatigue characterization effort is also included, specifically aimed at validating the performance and fatigue life of thin-wall geometries, which are common in aerospace structures and historically difficult to certify for flight-critical applications.
Hardware, Software, and Services Delivered Together
To meet NAVAIR’s development timelines, Colibrium Additive will supply three M Line metal 3D printing systems and one M2 Series 5 printer. These machines will directly support MPC development activities on-site.
Beyond hardware, the contract includes a comprehensive AddWorks services package: licensed material characterization data and curves, manufacturing process instructions, and select specifications tailored to the production of NAVAIR components.
A multi-disciplinary training program rounds out the contract, covering teams across manufacturing, quality, design, and materials disciplines, as well as machine operators. The goal is to build lasting internal expertise within the Navy, not just deliver equipment, so that qualified additive manufacturing processes can be sustained and scaled over time.
“Colibrium Additive is proud to extend its support of NAVAIR with proven metal additive technology and deep application expertise,” said Lars Bruns, executive technology leader at Colibrium Additive. “By combining certified hardware with licensed process data and hands-on training, we are helping accelerate the Navy’s ability to produce repeatable, airworthy components at scale and reduce supply chain risk for critical aviation parts.”
The U.S. Military’s Push to Certify Metal 3D Printing at Scale
The U.S. defense sector has been grappling with a structural challenge: additive manufacturing technology has outpaced the regulatory and qualification frameworks needed to deploy it on operational aircraft and vessels. For aviation commands like NAVAIR, the bottleneck is less about printing capability and more about the absence of certified material datasets, repeatable processes, and trained workforces, the exact gaps Colibrium Additive’s contract is designed to close.
Similar efforts are taking shape across the naval landscape. Velo3D signed a four-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with NAVAI in June 2025, involving two federal labs, NAWCAD and Fleet Readiness Center East, to qualify advanced metal AM materials and processes for flight-critical components in military aircraft systems.
On the shipbuilding side, Johns Hopkins APL worked alongside NAVSEA to develop new qualification methods now embedded in the Navy’s manufacturing guidelines and certification standards, reducing machine certification requirements by over 60% while maintaining reliability, driven by the recognition that AM parts must perform predictably across multiple vendors and environments to be viable at scale.
The Colibrium Additive award signals that NAVAIR is moving beyond pilots and into institutionalized capability, one where certified alloy data, qualified printers, and trained personnel converge to make on-demand production of airworthy parts an operational reality, not a future promise.
3D Printing Industry is inviting speakers for its 2026 Additive Manufacturing Applications (AMA) series, covering Energy, Healthcare, Automotive and Mobility, Aerospace, Space and Defense, and Software. Each online event focuses on real production deployments, qualification, and supply chain integration. Practitioners interested in contributing can complete the call for speakers form here.
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Featured image shows M Line metal 3D printing systems. Photo via Colibrium Additive.
