TechnologyReview reports on 3D-printing in high-end industries

David H. Freedman had a nice and well-thought article about application of 3D printing in aerospace, car and medical device industries in TechnologyReview magazine.

 An aircraft engine component made by GE

Some facts which stand out from the article:

- "About 20,000 parts made by laser sintering are already flying in military and commercial aircraft made by Boeing, including 32 different components for its 787 Dreamliner planes, according to Terry Wohlers".

-  "Until now, each one (a four-foot-long strips bonded onto the leading edge of fan blades) has required tens of hours of forging and machining, during which 50 percent of the titanium was lost. By switching to 3-D printing, the company will save about $25,000 in labor and material in each engine, estimates Todd Rockstroh, the GE consulting engineer who heads the effort"

- "And using 3-D printing to corrugate the insides of some parts can reduce their weight by up to 70 percent, which can save an airline millions of gallons of fuel every year"

Some other jet engine components printed at GE

Several reasons to adopt 3D printing:

- Parts produced by 3D printing are less expensive and lighter without compromising on strength, which will translate into less fuel consumption for aircraft.

- Designers are more flexible and have more freedom in designing high complex parts, which can make parts both light and strong, and optimized physical properties like airflow for jet engines.

- Materials are not wasted, which results in less cost and is better for environment.

- Inventory can be kept low because parts can be produced at any time with no extra cost.

- Improved version of parts can be quickly made to meet technical requirements upon testing on the field.



Some identified shortcomings of 3D printing technologies:

- Speeds are too slow. It needs to improve as much as a hundredfold to compete with conventional methods.

- Range of usable materials are too narrow. Only a couple of plastic and metal compounds can be used today.

- Quality of printed objects are highly unpredictable. Mechanical properties of different prints have high-level of inconsistency. Interlayer stresses and porosity are two major factors that causes those problems.


Via TechnologyReview