PSI - Issue 79

Suzana Lampreia et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 79 (2026) 81–87

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In maritime industry, adoption of AM may be delayed by technical and organizational barriers: limited usable materials, build-chamber size constraints, incomplete CAD models for obsolete parts, certification and standardization needs, and AM operators’ skill gaps (Alzahmi, 2025). Certification organizations such as Lloyd´s Register, DNV, ABS, BV, and TWI are developing norms for AM quality methods, but widespread acceptance is still emerging. (Chen et al., 2021) Mitigation strategies for AM production on board ships may include non-destructive evaluation, post-build machining (subtractive manufacturing), validation testing (tensile, fatigue), and development of digital twin libraries for electro-pump components allowing reliable reproduction. 3. Case Study – Integrating 3D printers’ concept on equipment´s maintenance 3.1 General methodology Given the state of art and the founded bibliography about addictive manufacturing applied to industry and on ships, it is believed that this may be applied to electro-pumps from Navy ships. For a general methodology applied to equipment’s on an industrial or navy maintenance system considering spare parts with AM it is proposed to choose the system or equipment for apply this methodology, then the spare parts for printing must be defined, follow by the database where the designs for spare parts manufactured would be storage, also the 3D printers that are possible to be applied on board ships should be defined and be acquired by the organization and installed on board or workshops, the spare parts printing should be test, then follow the quality evaluation, if it is acceptable the spare parts may be applied on the equipment’s, if not should check the design of the spare parts then choose again the adequacy of the printer.

Fig. 2. Proposal methodology for applying 3D printers on general

After the AM produced spare part appliance, the state of the equipment that suffer the substitution must be checked out of service and online. But if after substitution the equipment still does not operate properly, the AM methodology and applied methods should be checked, Fig. 2. 3.2 Methodology – implementation of on a ship electro-pump Electro-pumps are probably one of the most common equipment on ship electromechanical systems, so it is vital for ship operations (ex.: ballast, cooling, fire suppression). Depending on the ship, usually there are redundancies on