U.S. Air Force scientists are turning to 3D printing to produce a smaller successor to the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) that will also be far lighter than the original but far, far more destructive.

And, as an added bonus, the intensity of the blast "footprint" of this "Baby MOAB" or the "Advanced Future Bomb" can be varied depending on the mission.

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Scientists and engineers at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have turned to 3D printing to produce more lethal, lighter and more versatile bombs as part of their "next-generation munition concept."

3D printing technology will enable the production of lighter bombs by allowing the printing thinner bomb casings. A case in point is the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), which was dropped on an underground ISIS tunnel complex in the Archin District, Nangarhar Province in Afghanistan on April 12.

Much of the massive 10,000 kg weight of MOAB is accounted for by the bomb casing, which is two inches thick. Ironically, the very thickness of the casing limits the amount of damage wrought by the bomb, said Dr. John Corley, the core technical competency lead for ordnance sciences at AFRL.

MOAB will be structured to be lighter by using 3D printing.

"Right now, most of your penetrator munitions have two-inch case walls," said Dr. Corley, who noted this actually prevents a larger blast and creates more debris.

To solve this challenge, AFRL has begun printing casing prototypes using steel. AFRL is also 3D printing new fuze prototypes to allow "distributed embedded fusing" in the bomb.

Distributed embedded fusing separates the fuze from the casing, thereby making the bomb more flexible when it hits and how it hits, said Dr. Corley.

He said the next step for the Advanced Future Bomb will be to incorporate these various "selectable effects."

"In a selectable effects, on any given day you might want it to be the same weapon to give you a small blast footprint, or a large blast footprint, and right now we can control this ... height of burst," he said.

The burst height controls the range of damage. The succeeding shockwave MOAB uses to penetrate its target could be controlled to be smaller or larger depending on which selectable effect is used.

Thus, how much or how little yield the bomb exerts might be determined for whatever the mission may be. This means the actual size of the bomb won't matter, which means bombs as massive as MOAB might not be needed in the future.

TagsU.S. Air Force, 3D Printing, Mother of All Bombs, MOAB, Baby MOAB, Advanced Future Bomb, air force research laboratory, AFRL, GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB)