Elmet Technologies installs 3D Systems DMP Flex 350 Triple for monolithic hypersonic heat exchangers

Elmet Technologies, the Lewiston, Maine-based materials arm of The Elmet Group, is installing a 3D Systems DMP Flex 350 Triple LPBF printer to produce heat exchangers for hypersonic vehicles. The company expects to qualify and certify the system for production in 2026, after eight years of joint parameter work with 3D Systems' Application Innovation Group on C103-a niobium-hafnium-titanium alloy for extreme high-temperature aerospace duty. The three-laser machine uses a 350 × 350 × 350 mm build volume and holds chamber oxygen below 25 ppm, typically 0–6 ppm, so costly reactive powder can be reused without property loss. Elmet will print large exchangers as single monolithic parts, eliminating brazed multi-section joints that fail under severe thermal cycling.

The install is a materials-to-part capacity bet for the US defense industrial base, not a machine press release. At C103 powder prices reported up to $4,000/kg, oxygen control and reuse govern unit economics as much as thin-wall geometry does, while in-house LPBF thins exposure to a narrow refractory supplier base. Parallel work-Velo3D advancing Amaero C103 on Sapphire systems after Auburn's NCAME confirmed ASTM F3635 Class B after 2,200°F heat treatment-shows reliable C103 production remains an industry-wide qualification grind. Elmet's push also follows a June $4.3M defense award to scale molybdenum AM, stacking two refractory tracks for domestic hypersonic and interceptor supply.

Certification in 2026 is the gate: parameter libraries pay only when parts clear agency acceptance at production cadence.