BeAM, a French company with a Solutions Centre in Cincinnati, U.S.A that specializes in directed energy deposition (DED) technology, has announced a partnership with PFW Aerospace. The two companies will be qualifying an aerospace component for a large civil passenger aircraft using the titanium alloy, Ti6Al4V, which fulfills typical aerospace quality requirements. This collaboration will also focus on industrializing the DED process to manufacture series components.
3D printing is becoming a significant alternative to conventional manufacturing methods, especially in the aerospace industry where component weight, low production volumes, and small batch numbers play a huge role.
A supplier of systems and components for all civilian Airbus models as well as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, PFW can establish designs for additive manufacturing (AM), and perform qualifications. This is due to its status as a build-to-spec developer, and its experience in qualifying components and processes.
Titanium alloys are expensive materials to process and are predestined for AM. PFW is working closely with BeAM to test the applicability of this process to currently-machined titanium components, and complex welding designs.
DED technology can give complex characteristics to semi-finished products or intermediate construction. The results are near-net-shape geometries in which completing production is only a simple program for finishing the surface. This can then reduce material expense as well as scrap volume by more than 70 per cent, which has a sustainable effect on process cost effectiveness. PFW is striving to create a process combining cost-effective manufacturing of geometrically simple intermediate products and projects with complex, additive characteristics.
Image courtesy of 3DPrint.com