As the aviation industry continues to battle with rising costs and long-term environmental sustainability concerns, there may be a solution that can assist address both difficulties. Aircraft parts can currently be 3D printed, which not only helps to cut emissions but also provides a more affordable manufacturing option. In fact, Boeing claims that by using 3D-drawn parts, it can save $3 million per aircraft.
It's a good idea to have a backup plan just in case. In the future, vital engine components and other essential parts of aircraft might even be constructed in this manner. But how will 3D printing affect hardware and systems that are essential for maintaining safety? How would adopting the mindset of 3D printing on an assembly line affect the whole aviation sector?
Advantages of 3D printing aircraft components
The benefits of employing 3D printing components on airplanes go beyond financial savings. In addition, manufacturing will be quicker and more accurate, and its carbon footprint will be less.
Start with the prototype. The time saved in creating new prototypes or models with 3D printing components might amount to thousands of hours, as opposed to days or weeks. Comparing 3D printing to traditional production, it is also simpler to make adjustments because you can quickly produce and evaluate inexpensive prototypes using less expensive materials. In other words, using materials that are lighter and less expensive than the final result, you can simulate what an aircraft part would look like and utilize it for aerodynamic testing and analysis., and make adjustments before investing in full-cost metal parts.
Also, 3D printing makes manufacturing more expedient and accurate, particularly when it comes to jigs used in the manufacturing process. Parts produced through traditional manufacturing must be held in place with fixtures, such as metal pins, during machining in order to limit variance and errors from one item to the next. However traditional manufacturers continue to face difficulties due to the time or expense needed to produce thousands of fixtures. In contrast, 3D printing enables businesses to produce goods for 40% less money and labor than they would otherwise.
Finally, all the time and effort saved in prototyping and production allows for the production of more parts with less energy and waste. Prioritizing more sustainable manufacturing ought to be a given as it accounts for more than one-fifth of the world's total carbon emissions. A large reduction in carbon footprint is achieved through 3D printing, which can reduce material use by up to 90%.
Is 3D printing in the airspace secure?
Yet, there are significant safety issues with 3D printing because of how it operates. Instead of carving parts from heavy blocks of material, 3D printing depends on layering lightweight materials to create parts. A weaker, porous, or brittle final product is frequently a side effect of the delamination process. The FAA took some time to verify that 3D printing parts were more likely to fail or be damaged than traditionally made ones because of the strict hardware certification criteria. Now that titanium can now be 3D printed, new technologies have made the substance and finished product stronger than before, and certification may go even more swiftly.
After all, the safety procedures and guidelines that apply to 3D-printed aircraft and the parts that make them are thorough enough to guarantee that any 3D-printed parts that wind up on an aircraft do not compromise safety. To ensure that 3D printing is only appropriate for non-safety-critical parts, or that sufficient inspection and testing are necessary to ensure people and aircraft safety, DO-254 and comparable standards for aerospace hardware currently require in-depth testing and quality assurance.
Trends in 3D printing in aviation
A tiny part of how avionics is evolving is 3D printing. Yet, the way that manufacturers of aircraft think about compliance and certification may alter as a result of the 3D printing paradigm.
Some of the supply chain issues facing the aircraft industry today may be resolved with improved 3D printing. As a result, it might support urban air mobility (UAM). The idea behind UAM is that one day all of us may choose to use air taxis in place of or in addition to conventional cars. But we need a lot of smaller planes for UAM to function. This procedure can be made easier by 3D printing.
Also, just as 3D printing could facilitate the building block approach to aircraft manufacturing in the future, we are also seeing the industry adopt an “assembly line” mindset when it comes to software and hardware compliance and certification building blocks for avionics.
For example, templates are an important part of compliance and certification because they allow manufacturers and aircraft developers to certify new designs in an efficient and repeatable manner.
Maybe one day you will take a 100% 3D printed plane, and maybe one day, you will be as familiar with air taxis as Uber is today.