Additive manufacturing (AM) is a transformative technology that is integral to Industry 4.0, an industrial evolution concept leveraging advanced/smart/digital manufacturing, and a high-priority national growth area. Extrusion-based methods such as fused filament fabrication (FFF) have achieved vast proliferation, market penetration, and scientific advancement in the last decade. While direct ink write (DIW) has not garnered the same attention as FFF, it offers significant flexibility in functionally tailored soft matter that creates unique application opportunities in diverse industry sectors like food, pharmaceuticals, ceramics, synthetic biomaterials, construction, energy, and defense. DIW provides a viable manufacturing path for dynamically graded, multi-material parts laden with functional solid materials suspended in a soft matrix. Parts can be architected at multiple scales leading to a metamaterial framework: from microscopic ink formulation manipulation to macroscopic control during manufacturing. Wide ranging defense applications of interest include biomimicry and soft robotics, flexible electronics and wearable sensors, synthetic biology, printed batteries/energy storage, composite tooling production, and printed seals/gaskets. The presentation will discuss advances in soft materials manufacturing via DIW, demonstrate use cases for functional soft materials in engineering applications, and introduce successfully transitioned soft DIW parts and processes. The objective is to advocate for increased industrial adoption of DIW to meet modern defense challenges and provide another tool in the advanced manufacturing kit of the Defense Industrial Base.
