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Metal AM in the aerospace sector: from early successes to the transformation of an industry Across the world, a new wave of aerospace engineers are designing and building the next generation of aero engines and systems around the revolutionary capabilities of Additive Manufacturing. Twenty years ago this was a vision, but today it is a reality. From fuel nozzles to Stage 5 and Stage 6 low pressure turbine (LPT) blades, housings to structural elements, in this article Metal AM magazine's Technical Consultant Martin McMahon reviews the progress that has been made, shining a light on selected applications that offer insight to those in the aerospace industry who want to get up to speed with progress.
Cast your mind back twenty years and imagine a list of all the companies capable of producing parts for the aerospace sector using Additive Manufacturing. That list would not be very long at all. However, there are now suppliers on every continent and entire programmes where Additive Manufacturing is at the heart of innovation and development – as well as being responsible for keeping ageing fleets airborne. Although, in reality, metal Additive Manufacturing has been in development for a considerable amount of time, it is only in the past two decades that it has made headway as a groundbreaking technology. This development has transformed the aerospace sector's ability to produce lightweight, intricate and high-performing parts in ways that were not previously deemed possible. The ability to create complex geometries with the internal features required for cooling effects and to reduce weight through newly optimised designs has started to enable improved efficiency and enhanced performance in numerous areas of
Vol. 9 No. 3 © 2023 Inovar Communications Ltd
aircraft and satellite technology. This now ranges from engine components to structural assemblies in safety-critical applications. In the past three to five years, the industry has experienced a huge increase in the number of use cases where AM parts have been designed to replace conventionally manufactured parts.
Following a truly rapid expansion of the adoption of AM technologies, the sector is starting to report on lower costs, faster lead times, and, in the new era of digital manufacturing, vast improvements in flexible design and development methods based on simulation and generative algorithms. With this use of metal AM, the avia-
Fig. 1 The GE9X turbofan is the ultimate demonstration of the capabilities of AM, containing more than 300 metal additively manufactured parts. The engine has been selected by Boeing for its 777X airliner (Courtesy GE Aerospace)
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Metal AM's aerospace journey
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