3D Printed Airliner Parts Face Regulatory Headwinds (wsj.com)

Some aerospace suppliers are eager to start using 3-D printing technology to turn out large, high-volume structural parts for jetliners, but U.S. safety regulators are taking a go-slow approach toward approving such production. From a report: Three-dimensional printing is a darling of the aerospace industry because it is relatively inexpensive compared with more-prevalent ways of making components. A series of announcements at the Paris Air Show expected in coming days illustrates the immense promise of airliner parts manufactured by 3-D printers -- as well as the formidable regulatory challenges confronting their widespread acceptance (alternative source). On Tuesday, officials of Norsk Titanium AS, a closely held Norwegian company that has developed a novel 3-D printing approach, will unveil a broad partnership with Spirit AeroSystems, a major subcontractor for Boeing and other industry players. Under the arrangement, Spirit sees the potential of eventually using Norsk's technology to produce thousands of different parts at 30% lower cost than traditional milling methods. However, before that can happen, the Federal Aviation Administration has to approve the overall process and certify that the cutting-edge, plasma-deposition technology is reliable enough to ensure identical strength and other properties from batch to batch. FAA officials have said they are moving cautiously, because they want to fully understand the unique technical issues.

Comments

Sintering, not 3-d printing

[wired_parrot]

Stop calling it 3d-printing. This is just a variation of sintering techniques that have been used for decades in the aerospace industry. While this particular method of laser sintering may be novel and require the FAA to study it before approving, sintering is a well understood metallurgical process. Given the high heat required for the process, no one is going to be home printing machine parts in their basement any time soon.

Re:Casting and milling are well understood

[bluefoxlucid]

Oh holy shit, I just actually took a look at their technology.

They're using an argon-gas atmosphere to create an effective clean room, and then rapidly depositing titanium by turning it into a charged vapor (plasma) so that it binds to the part. They basically get a solid, perfect chunk of metal roughly in the shape of the part they need, rapidly, because the atom-thick charged metallic gas sticks to the metallic substrate with no impurities between, and so doesn't create air bubbles or whatnot. It's like electroplating, in a mechanical sense, but the physics are entirely different.

So it's titanium plated onto titanium millions of times with precision until you get what's almost a machined part, and then some quick machining. Instead of milling a block into a complex shape, you mill what looks like something a (skilled) child would make with Playdoh after being shown that complex shape into the final product.

That's nifty. I bet it takes surprisingly-little energy, too. If you're converting metal into a plasma gas, you're essentially mobilizing atoms with close to the minimum energy required to do so. This versus forcefully crushing things or melting things, leaking heat all over the place in the process.