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Boeing Expects To Save Millions In Dreamliner Costs Using 3D-Printed Titanium Parts (reuters.com)
According to Reuters, Boeing has hired Norsk Titanium AS to print titanium parts for its 787 Dreamliner, paving the way to cost savings of $2 million to $3 million for each plane. The 3D-printed metal parts will replace pieces made with more expensive traditional manufacturing, thus making the 787 more profitable. From the report: Strong, lightweight titanium alloy is seven times more costly than aluminum, and accounts for about $17 million of the cost of a $265 million Dreamliner, industry sources say. Boeing has been trying to reduce titanium costs on the 787, which requires more of the metal than other models because of its carbon-fiber composite fuselage and wings. Titanium also is used extensively on Airbus Group SE's rival A350 jet. Norsk worked with Boeing for more than a year to design four 787 parts and obtain Federal Aviation Administration certification for them, Chip Yates, Norsk Titanium's vice president of marketing, said. Norsk expects the U.S. regulatory agency will approve the material properties and production process for the parts later this year, which would "open up the floodgates" and allow Norsk to print thousands of different parts for each Dreamliner, without each part requiring separate FAA approval, Yates said. Norsk said that initially it will print in Norway, but is building up a 67,000-square-foot (6,220-square-meter) facility in Plattsburgh in upstate New York, where it aims to have nine printers running by year-end.
but parts for human extermination, once it serves SKYNET.
It's great to see that 3D printing is being touted as a cost saving measure here. I typically see 3D printing in the context of "innovative", but not really cost effective; perhaps we've hit the inflection point where the technology is mature enough to truly disrupt established industries.
Direct metal laser sintering
So for an airplane to pay off the $265 million. Presumable over 15 years, that means it has to generate approximately 20 million per year. That is over $50,000 a day ..assuming it can operate 365 days a year and cost is excluding fuel, crew, airport fees and other expenses. I dunno that sounds like a lot to me -- expensive ticket prices.
Considering metal 3d print is in fact "metal carving" I have a hard time understanding how this can be cost effective. Is Titanium conventional casting production that expensive?
I have a hard time believing that metal 3D-printed parts could ever be as strong as die-cast parts, which are nowhere near as strong as CNC-milled parts. The metal "grain" in a 3D-printed part would be to disorganized to have high tensile strength, leading to brittleness.
Is Titanium conventional casting production that expensive?
Making the mold itself, into which the parts are cast, is expensive.
When you're building cars by the hundreds everyday, it's totally worth using cast metal for the various pieces of equipement. You have a big upfront cost making the mold, but then you have hundreds of thousands of parts to divide the cost.
When you're only building a plane per month or so, making a unique piece that is only needed once per product will be damned expensive by traditional methods :
- casting will get more expensive (again, the mold it self is the most expensive part, not the parts cast into it - less parts produced means, less parts to divide production cost, means higher end cost)
- hiring machinists to build it is also expensive.
Suddenly laser-sintering the part becomes attractive.
And that's what these 3D production technique excel at : custom low volume parts.
- Traditionally, that means it help innovation (when experimenting with a few new parts)
- But at also means it's useful for something which is produced at extremely low volume and requires highly customized parts (air planes, rockets, etc.)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Nothing better than an airline company trying to reduce costs.
So to get those overbooked paying customers off in a hurry?
With the US relationship with Putin suddenly going sour you can almost bet that the price of titanium is going to go way up in a hurry. If I were in Russia I would buy stock in these guys. Russia can just as easily tighten the supply in a hurry if we put sanctions on them, unlike during the breakup of the USSR when they needed the cash and dumped a butt tonne on the market making the construction of the Guggenheim affordable.
The Chinese still have export restrictions on their supply and I doubt whether they will sell raw product to Boeing. Boeing could be in for a world of hurt and the Chinese and the Russians might just have a big enough lever to get into the commercial aircraft production market. There is exploration going on in Australia that is encouraging in sources of titanium but there is very little in North and South America that can be economically viable in terms of supply. I have the feeling that our "fearless leader" has not taken this into consideration in his somewhat disorganized dealings with the east!
Let me know when someone is using this method for the main spar in a high G drone fighter design..
It saves money right up to the point that you find that all the computer modeling and testing failed to spot something important and you have to do serious (pricey) work mid-life of an aircraft..
I'm sure Boeing thought/knew that lithium batteries where safe in their dream liners,how many did they lose to that simple little mistake and how much did it cost in time and options to put it right ?
I think I prefer parts made in the older ways,until we have 20+ years use of new methods in non vital areas..
We know precisely what happens when you hit things with a 4000/5000 ton forgeing hammer and after treatments,it's worked fine for decades so far..
This strikes me as a bit of a desperate attempt by Boeing to save a few dollars here and there cos they not realy making much profit on anything that doesn't risk being cut back by trumps administration,if the new air force ones are cancelled and gov decides not to pay for large piles of scrap,how much would that one alone cost Boeing..
They have had a charmed life for a long time Boeing,nothing says it will continue very far into the future..
You never know,the next president might just be forced into having to to tell America that it has to live within its means,no matter what others are doing..
Or it could be mother nature herself that sends America the message,such as yellow stone kicking off in a minor way, inconvenient for the rest of us but could totally drvestate America,depending on time of year and weather at the time,or one of the unknown/un-monitored faults could let go big time,active geology means that eventualy you will end up living in interesting times...
>building up a 67,000-square-foot (6,220-square-meter) facility in Plattsburgh
We're a metal town again! Yay!
>Plattsburgh
Aww...
Taking the concepts of minimal required materials and planned obsolescence to whole new levels with the marvel of 3D printing.
Engineering: the art of cutting costs by designing to the exact spec required and nothing more.
Not much - windows which, rather than teeny-weeny are very small, plus a pressure in the cabin slightly higher and more humid than before. That's it. The rest of the experience is the same miserable one that it has been for 15 years, with less and less legroom, the same plasticky food, the same you-pay-for-everything-and-then-some, take-it-or-leave attitude from the airlines, and, most importantly, it still takes the same amount of time to cover the classical London - New York route as it over 50 years ago. Dreamliner? Not for passengers.
I think Boeing would borrow a leaf from the Russians. They still manage to produce planes cheaper, though not in big quantities.
And that's despite everyone in the Russian supply chain having to build in the cost of bribes.
Granted, Boeing and Airbus have to do that too, but "subsidy" and "tax break" are much more polite words.
The cooperation goes both ways. Boeing has a huge engineering center in Moscow, but Boeing also helped United Aircraft Corporation with the Sukhoi Superjet 100 design and actually partakes in its sales and marketing.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
The main benefit of laser sintering or 3D printing when it comes to these titanium parts is the optimal shapes you can make. Traditional casting and milling processes have many limitations where you need to support/remove the mold pieces, have specific wall thicknesses, or be able to actually mill with real bits. 3D printing, provided the process is roughly as strong and fatigue resistant as the traditional material, allows you to make impossible shapes that are far more optimal for the weight like cardboard which has internal cutouts impossible to create traditionally. This along with software for optimizing loads can easily save 30% on material weight while still maintaining the same load constraints as a traditional part. For an airplane this shaves off huge $$$ in material costs, allows the same plane to carry more weight and/or be more fuel efficient.
Russian jets are cheaper because Russian labor is much cheaper. Also, are you comparing comparable models? An A320Neo or B737MAX is a very different animal from a Sukhoi Superjet 100 (regional jet versus larger single aisle).
... are named after the TV character, Arthur Fonzerelli.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
This is the problem with people who do not understand engineering very well, such as materials engineering and fracture mechanics and think that 3d printing resolves all issues. Geometry is only one item in several dozen different design factors that need to be considered.
Titanium alloys have been used in aero structures and aero engines (compressor stage) because of their properties. One portion of the properties is material composition, what alloying compositions that improve strength, toughness, fatigue & creep to list a few.
Add in heat treatment of the alloys, which influences the grain structure which actually can enhance or destroy the resistance to crack propagation caused by fatigue loading, high stress intensity factors and or damage tolerance.
3d printing a titanium component would most like lose all the attractive properties of titanium alloys.
well, to be fair, a Tu-204 is cheaper than anything Boeing or Airbus offers, but I don't think they are manufactured anymore.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap