3D Printing in Aerospace
Advantages of additive manufacturing for the industry
Additive manufacturing has been used in the aerospace industry for more than three decades and has revolutionized development and production in the branch ever since. This makes the sector one of the first to embrace the benefits of 3D printing and to take advantage of it in various areas. In this article, we want to give you an overview of how the technology is being used, how the industry is benefiting from it respectively, and how this area may evolve in the future.
Savings in weight, costs and fuel
One of the most important requirements of the aerospace industry for the manufacture, optimization and new development of parts is the saving of weight. And especially when it comes to lightweight construction, additive manufacturing offers great potential. The technology makes it easy to implement lightweight structures without sacrificing stability. Numerous aircraft parts, such as cabin components, fasteners and hinges, can already be replaced by 3D printed parts, reducing aircraft weight by up to seven percent. This in turn goes hand in hand with significant fuel savings and thus reduced costs. Continuous further developments in this area also mean that it is likely that the parts will be able to be optimized even further in the future and that it will soon be possible to manufacture larger aircraft components, such as some parts of the wings or fuselage, using additive manufacturing, which will enable even further weight savings.
Design freedom enables complex and new geometries
Additive manufacturing is generally characterized by a very high degree of design freedom. The parts required in aerospace often include complex surfaces, some of which are curved, thin walls, and internal channels and structures. 3D printing makes it easy to produce such geometries. In addition, the technology is ideally suited for creating highly complex yet lightweight structures that also feature high stability and resistance, making them ideal for the industry's requirements.
The enormous design freedom also makes it possible to design and produce components directly as a single part, which in other processes have to be manufactured as component assemblies from several individual parts. This procedure is called "component consolidation" and helps save time, material and weight. This is because consolidation eliminates the need to manufacture various manufacturing tools and use fasteners. Both are required in other manufacturing processes for the production and assembly of the individual parts.
The special and far-reaching design possibilities of additive manufacturing can thus be used in aerospace to achieve further cost savings. In addition, material consumption is further reduced in this way, production times are shortened, and at the same time the quality of the parts and thus of the entire aircraft is increased.
Flexible and fast production
Parts for aircrafts are usually only required and produced in small quantities. Since additive manufacturing works without tools and only 3D data is required for production, it offers an extremely economical alternative to conventional processes, especially for the production of small batches. By eliminating the need for initial investment in manufacturing tooling, 3D printing also allows for further savings in terms of cost and time. Übersetzter Text In addition, subsequent changes to the parts can be easily implemented, as this only requires the respective 3D data to be adjusted, which generally enables more flexible and agile production. Parts for aircraft are usually only required and produced in small quantities. This also makes it easy to produce individualized functional parts or parts of the interior, and 3D printing also offers a simple and fast solution for the procurement of spare parts.
Wide range of materials
A large number of different plastics and metals are available for 3D printing. This wide selection makes it possible to choose the material with exactly the right properties for every application. Factors that can play a role here, especially in aerospace, include weight, wear resistance, density, thermal stability or structural reliability such as surface accuracy.
In addition, further and new developments are also constantly being worked on in the area of materials. It can thus be assumed that materials that are even better adapted to the requirements of the industry will be available in the future. Since 3D printing can also be used to produce prototypes and test parts quickly and cost-effectively, the technology can additionally help to test and optimize new materials.
Conclusion and outlook
These points show that additive manufacturing is already being used successfully and in a variety of ways in the aerospace industry, giving the sector many advantages. Through continued research and development, both in the industry and in terms of 3D printing technology itself, it can be expected that the positive impact of additive manufacturing on the sector will deepen in the coming years and that the technology will be even better adapted to the requirements of the aerospace industry.
In addition, completely new fields of application for 3D printing are constantly opening up in the industry. In the field of astronautics, for example, research is currently being conducted into whether and how additive manufacturing can be used directly in space, and here, too, the first successes can already be seen. How 3D printing could develop in general in the future, we have summarized for you in a small future outlook.