Deep Manufacturing CEO Peter Richards details wire arc DED build strategy for underwater habitats and certified pressure vessels

On the 3DPOD podcast, Deep Manufacturing CEO Peter Richards described how the company uses wire arc directed energy deposition (WAAM/DED) to build underwater habitats, pressure vessels, and large certified metal structures for clients. Richards discussed the company's rapid scale-up, its roadblocks, and an unusually open approach to robotics partnering rather than a closed, proprietary cell design. The conversation also covered certification and quality control, the gating factors for turning DED cells into repeatable, code-compliant production rather than one-off demonstrations.

Underwater habitats and pressure vessels sit outside AM's usual aerospace and medical demand centers, and both carry their own qualification burden: pressure-retaining structures require code compliance (such as ASME) comparable in rigor to aerospace part certification. Wire arc DED's core advantage, large deposition volumes at lower cost per kilogram than powder-bed processes, maps well onto this kind of oversized, thick-walled metal structure rather than fine-featured components. Deep Manufacturing's open posture on robotics integration also breaks from OEM-locked DED cells common among incumbents. The near-term signal to watch is whether Deep converts these certified structures into repeat orders, the marker that separates a qualified process from a one-off build.