White Paper - Additive Manufacturing Trends in Aerospace
11Pages

Additive Manufacturing Trends In Aerospace L E A D I N G T H E W AY By Joe Hiemenz, Stratasys, Inc. Aerospace is the industry that other industries look to for a glimpse at what’s on the horizon. Aerospace has a long history of being an early adopter, innovator and investigator. What this industry was doing decades ago has now become commonplace, almost pedestrian. For example, the aerospace industry was the earliest adopter of carbon fiber, and it was the first to integrate CAD/CAM into its design process. There are many other examples that show that trends in aerospace are predictors of future trends in manufacturing across all industries. THE 3D PRINTING SOLUTIONS COMPANY

Additive Manufacturing Trends In Aerospace L E A D I N G T H E W AY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Economist calls additive manufacturing using EXTENDING THE FRONTIER OF THE POSSIBLE Aerospace innovators are embracing additive industrial revolution. manufacturing beyond prototyping and are aggressively pursuing new use cases for All discontinuous innovations follow the the technology. Some leading aerospace same adoption curve, except in the 21st manufacturers are already using this technology to century. Now exponential technologies and fabricate jigs and fixtures, production tooling and digital...

Additive Manufacturing Trends In Aerospace L E A D I N G T H E W AY Existing human processes and behaviors are hard to change however, and manufacturing without a traditional factory is today an unrealistic concept. Instead, we see accelerated adoption in specific applications and industries such as aerospace and a general spread of the use of technology as designers and engineers expand the frontier of the possible. NASA outfitted the Mars rovers with 70 AM parts. Unlocking investment capital and resources to New additive manufacturing design freedoms learn and adopt new design and...

Additive Manufacturing Trends In Aerospace L E A D I N G T H E W AY The pattern of adoption and outcomes from Beyond design and prototyping lie many implementation are clear; additive manufacturing opportunities to leverage additive manufacturing is accelerating change in aerospace for custom manufacturing tools. manufacturing, and companies should embrace and learn to leverage this technology. TOOLING Rotary wing and fixed wing repair specialist DRIVING DOWN COST AND WEIGHT, SAFELY Advanced Composite Structures (ACS) performs Innovative aerospace manufacturers want to drive composite...

Additive Manufacturing Trends In Aerospace L E A D I N G T H E W AY Jacob Allenbaugh, manufacturing engineer, Piper Aircraft. “The FDM 3D Production System can be much faster than a CNC machine and does not require an operator in attendance.” Another additive manufacturing advantage: “Material waste with FDM-based 3D printing is much less than CNC machining because the FDM Piper Aircraft hydroforms sheet metal parts on FDM-created tools. support material is typically less than 20 percent “For the repairs and short-volume production work of the total,” said Allenbaugh. that we specialize in,...

Additive Manufacturing Trends In Aerospace L E A D I N G T H E W AY JIGS, FIXTURES & SURROGATES The value in surrogates – which are placeholders 3D printing is making a significant impact in for the production assemblies — is that they manufacturing today, but due to its lack of are full-featured low cost replacements for “headline” appeal in the media, applications such highvalue parts. 3D printed surrogates are used as injection molding and jigs and fixtures are on the production floor and in the training room. being overlooked. Many manufacturing tools can For example Bell Helicopter...

Additive Manufacturing Trends In Aerospace L E A D I N G T H E W AY COMMERCIAL/ MILITARY Taylor-Deal Automation is one such company. It uses additive manufacturing for prototyping through production for its engineering and modification of specialty fluid and air handling parts. “With additive manufacturing we have design flexibility, cost reductions, weight savings and improved lead times,” said Brian Taylor, president, “all with low quantity production.” This instrument contains a toroid housing, produced via additive manufacturing. Taylor’s 3D printing material of choice is ULTEM®...

Additive Manufacturing Trends In Aerospace L E A D I N G T H E W AY contain less material, so their weight is approximately one-third (or less) of that of the metal parts they replace. UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEMS (UAS) UAS production is a rapidly growing segment for additive manufacturing because of the complex systems, manufacturing iterations, low-volumes, Aurora smart wing: 3D-printed structure with printed electronics. structural complexity, absolute requirement to save weight and absence of passenger safety regulations to hinder deployment. Aurora Flight Sciences, which develops and...

Additive Manufacturing Trends In Aerospace L E A D I N G T H E W AY and Aerosol Jet electronics printing to fabricate When the design was ready to take off, Leptron wings with integrated electronics. had flight-ready parts in less than 48 hours, all thanks to additive manufacturing. And for this “The ability to fabricate functional electronics project, there were multiple designs for specific into complexly shaped structures using additive applications, such as eight variations for the manufacturing can allow UAVs to be built more nesting integrated fuselage components. If it quickly, with...

Additive manufacturing is helping aerospace In aerospace, additive manufacturing has manufacturers become more cost become a tool for designing, testing, tooling effective, more agile and more efficient in and production that extends beyond the bringing new products to market. Whether aircraft manufacture into ground support used in prototyping, tooling or shortrun manufacturing, additive manufacturing is an essential capability to be agile and remain According to Sybrant, additive manufacturing competitive in this rapidly changing world. does not discriminate. There are reasons that large...