Building up instead of cutting out : reducing resource waste.
Date: 2012-09-18
Institutions: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation
Subjects: aeronautical industry, aircraft, materials technology, means of transport, production cost, sustainable development

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Building up instead of cutting out: reducing

resource waste

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The  production  of  advanced  high-tech 

component s  for  aircraf t  a nd  ot her 
aerospace applications is an expensive 
and time-intensive process involving design, 
prototyping and then machining of parts often 
using costly high strength-to-weight materials 
such as titanium. A new production approach 
developed  under  the  European  Union  (EU) 
-funded RAPOLAC project (Rapid Production 
of Large Aerospace Components) can bypass 
the prototyping stage and build a new part in 
a fraction of the time with production costs 
reduced by as much as 40 %.  

While the traditional machining approach cuts out 
metal from work pieces, the new Shaped Metal 
Deposition (SMD) process adds material layer by 
layer in a liquid metal deposition process. The 
end product requires minimal finishing, material 
waste is considerably reduced and the process 
has low to zero harmful emissions.

Large-scale aerospace parts can thus be built 
directly from the design model (CAD) with no 
need for a prototype stage and the ‘parts’ can 
be stored as programs and produced to order, 
thereby reducing inventory costs.

The SMD technology was initially developed by 
the aerospace manufacturer Rolls-Royce plc, 
but was not widely adopted for commercial 
production due to perceived technical limitations. 

In  2005  the  RAPOL AC  project  started  with 
the aim to investigate and further refine the 
SMD process for use in the production of large 
components or for adding new metal features 
to existing parts.

Research and 
Innovation

 
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RAPOLAC project coordinator Dr Rosemary Gault 
of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre 
(AMRC), Sheffield University, commented: “The 
main objective of RAPOLAC was to validate the 
SMD for use within aerospace and develop the 
process to the point where it can reliably and 
repeatedly be used in manufacturing.” 

“ The  SMD  process  we  have  demonstrated 
can reduce by 60 % the lead-time needed to 
produce new parts through the elimination of 
the tooling and prototyping stages. This could 
be of particular benefit to SMEs working on 
small batches of parts. The technology has 
the potential to allow smaller firms across 
the regions of Europe to diversify into the 
aerospace  market  and  offer  competitively 
priced precision parts.”

T h e  p r oje c t  w a s  fu n d e d  b e t we e n  2 0 0 7 
a n d   2 01 0   b y   t h e   E U ’s   6 t h  F r a m e w o r k 
Aeronautics and Space Programme and was 
coordinated by the Advanced Manufacturing 
Research Centre (AMRC) at the University of 
Sheffield in collaboration with partners in 
Belgium, Italy and Argentina who provided 
complementary expertise. 

Under the RAPOLAC project, the consortium 
developed  process  model s,  documented 
material properties and carried out research 
on the automation of the metal deposition 
process. The production parameters for different 
materials were established and the cost and 
environmental benefits were demonstrated. 

The consortium’s work showed that the SMD 
technology can potentially reduce the cost 
of  manufac turing  final  produc t s  by  4 0 % 
through the reduction in raw material usage, 
energy costs and the elimination of specialist 
production tooling. The SMD approach can also 
help reduce the cost of inventory by 90 % since 
the part designs are stored as computer files 
and then built to order. The consortium has also 
produced test parts for six different aerospace 
companies and is being invited to develop more 
for other sectors.

RAPOLAC

Project Total Cost: €2.7 million

Project EU Contribution: €2.1 million

Partners from: United Kingdom, Belgium, 
Argentina, Italy

www.rapolac.eu