Additive Manufacturing in Aerospace Industry
By: Saime Ha Group
Tags: Aerospace, Aerospace Industry, 3D Printing, Cad, Additive Manufacturing

Under the Guidance of Prof. Sunil Kuber

Introduction:

Manufacturing in the aircraft business is generally recognised to be difficult. Aerospace parts are not only extremely complicated, but they must also be structurally sound and exceed the highest quality standards in practically any industry. Many aerospace businesses are switching from traditional manufacturing procedures to additive manufacturing to efficiently build the complex parts they require in order to save money and overcome traditional production issues.

The advancement of AM reduces inventory issues and shortens the supply chain. The aircraft sector necessitates high-quality, sophisticated, and time-consuming components. The traditional manufacturing process is insufficient for small-scale production because there is a lot of material waste during the machining process, and making complex structures for aerospace applications takes several months.

Why should you choose AM over traditional manufacturing?

1. Complex Geometry:

Aerospace components, from helicopter parts to turbine engines, require highly complicated geometric shapes in often very small places. Rather than creating small, intricate elements separately and afterwards combining them into the whole, a design engineer can use printed CAD data to produce 3D models of the full structure — inside components and all.

2. Prototyping:

Aerospace engineers can design and print prototypes in a fraction of the time it would take using traditional manufacturing processes because they don’t need to develop mould or outsource production.

3. Economical production:

Material waste in traditional production can be as high as 98 percent in various aerospace applications. After subtraction, you may wind up with a lot of metal chips, and making the right mould can take a long time. Because additive manufacturing adds rather than subtracts material, it can substantially reduce material waste, saving manufacturers money on production expenses.

4. Lightweighting components:

Additive manufacturing technologies can reduce frame weight by 25% while boosting structural integrity by eliminating the requirement for linking components such as bolts and screws. Additive manufacturing not only reduces fuel consumption, but it also improves the overall strength of the aircraft.

5. Decrease in storage capacity:

Aerospace firms can make components — even custom parts — in-house in a fraction of the time and expense they would if they were to order them through the traditional supply chain, thanks to the additive manufacturing process’s speed and efficiency.

Applications of additive manufacturing in the aerospace industry

1. A communication satellite manufactured with 3D printing

Weight reduction in parts or assemblies during the design and manufacturing process has a favourable influence and leads to significant system benefits. Reduced weight on the reflectors of communication satellites, for example, decreases fuel efficiency and, as a result, saves money with the same performance, which can be enhanced using additive manufacturing.

2. Filters for radio frequencies

Airbus Defence and Space, is a branch of Airbus. In an effort to minimise weight and speed up production, the company developed RF filters that are 50 percent lighter and constructed as a single component rather than requiring the assembly of multiple parts. The 3D printed RF filters were carefully tested and found to meet all of their specifications, making technology a valuable tool in terms of weight loss, cost reduction, and production time improvement.

3. Bracket Satellite:

Topological optimization was used to optimize these skeleton-like brackets that were 3D printed using titanium. These titanium-based brackets are 25% lighter than conventional brackets and have a higher weight-to-strength ratio. Over the previous year, 3D metal printing has made great progress in the aerospace industry. Companies like GE and government agencies like NASA have invested in developing new 3D-printed alloys that can endure high-speed, high-heat conditions while also boosting the engine’s power-to-weight ratio.

4. 3D printed rocket

LAUNCHER is a US-based firm that is working on small to medium-scale payloads into space by 3D printing a rocket as a single element. This 3D printed rocket is based on a normal design, but it has an interior cooling system with ribs to support it. This firm has been printed and tested successfully. With these findings, it is possible to create new inventive designs that are cost-effective due to lightweighting.

5. Nozzle produced in 3D printer:

3D printing was used to construct the Ariane 6 rocket engine. With traditional machining, integrating many nozzles was problematic, but never with 3D printing. These injector heads were successfully printed with good fuel economy. This injector head has 1800 holes and would take months to make using traditional methods, yet it just takes 35 hours using 3D printing.

The Current State of AM in the Aerospace Industry

In 2014, Airbus Company produced a titanium rack for an aviation purpose, which was one of the first applications of AM in the aerospace industry. The SLM method was used to make this part, which was placed on the Airbus A350 XWB. By reducing fuel usage and weight, they were able to save thousands of dollars. They were able to save 25% on CO2 emissions due to their lighter weight.

Pratt and Whitney uses 3D printing to build the Aero Engine. Bombardier, the world’s largest aircraft maker, received the first engines for the CSeries passenger jet from Pratt & Whitney. They use 3D printing technology from design to prototype, decreasing waste and raw material use. It also allows for the exact fabrication of complex geometrical components. In comparison to traditional manufacturing methods, RollsRoyce has saved around 30% of production time thanks to this technology.

IIT Madras has started building a 20 Newton kilo-range semi-organic rocket that can launch satellites weighing up to 100 kilos into lower Earth orbit using 3D printing. They will 3D print the engines and send them into orbit with 3D printed wheels in response to client demand for small satellites, reducing the cost of construction time. ISRO has also begun to use 3D printing technology for 3D printed spaceship components. Wipro 3D is a customer of ISRO, which provides them with 3D printed aeroplane components.

Challenges encountered:

1. Size restrictions

One of the main obstacles of additive manufacturing in the aviation industry is the inability to make huge and odd-sized parts. When it comes to the fabrication of certain significant aircraft components, additive manufacturing, according to Deloitte, underperforms traditional manufacturing.

2. Consistency in quality

At the moment, additive manufacturing has several quality control issues, particularly when generating fully dense metal parts. The strength in the plane of layers is currently non-uniform. These issues should be addressed.

3. Limited material selection and high material costs

Currently, additive manufacturing technology is used to produce aircraft parts for the aviation industry using a small group of polymers and metal powder. These are expensive materials with substantially larger price tags than typical manufacturing materials, reducing the incentives to use additive manufacturing in production.

4. Industry benchmarks

There are no industry-wide standards that have been established. ASTM and ISO are actively working on standards for directed energy deposition (DED) AM, there is still a long way to go.

5. Limitations on scalability

Present additive manufacturing technologies may not be able to increase production in the event of a sudden rise in demand. Because this is a very realistic scenario in the aviation sector, one of the most significant issues of additive manufacturing in A&D is scalability.

6. Commercial flight certification

Getting 3D-printed parts authorised for use on commercial aircraft is one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome. The more successful implementations, such as GE’s LEAP engine line, the more open certifying institutions will be

Future scope

It’s no surprise that many organisations are turning to additive manufacturing for aerospace applications because of the ability to build customised, lightweight, and structurally sound parts rapidly and efficiently. When it comes to the future of additive manufacturing in aircraft, computer-aided design (CAD) models are critical. CAD models are clearly in use and beneficial to aerospace industries, as seen by the accessible additive manufacturing in aerospace examples and research. As more aerospace companies switch from traditional to additive manufacturing processes, the ability to print CAD models will become more important.

As a result, additive manufacturing is set to become a critical component in the future. AM’s advancement is already fundamentally transforming how goods are developed and made, but it still requires representation from all sectors.

Conclusion

AM has freed up the design space for novel solutions that improve performance while reducing weight and expense. The technique has evolved in response to commercial demands for faster production of larger, more complicated parts. Their interest in aerospace component manufacture has been piqued by additive manufacturing technology. It allows us to create complicated designs that would be difficult to create using traditional methods. Additionally, ongoing advancement and development in additive manufacturing would be a remarkable place in the future of aerospace production.