Unveiled at the Dubai Air Show this week, the collaborative effort between Stratasys and Aurora Flight Sciences is the largest and fastest 3D-printed aircraft so far. With a 9-foot wingspan and weighing 30 pounds, the unmanned aerial vehicle is also the first jet aircraft to be made through additive manufacturing. 80 percent by weight was made through the advanced process, the rest consisting of the engine, electronics and tires. Because the airplane was designed in a collaborative computer aided design process, the parts could be printed in Stratasys’ facilities even though they were designed primarily in Aurora’s Virginia headquarters. Besides saving weight, the process saves time, the complete aircraft going from initial idea to first flight in under nine months. Scott Sevcik, aerospace and defense business development manager at Stratasys, and a recent presenter at the ninth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium, says, “Aurora wanted to look at the feasibility of producing a vehicle tailored to unique mission requirements. They identified …
EAS IX: Additive Manufacturing Parts Flying on Airbuses
Scott Sevcik, Aerospace and Defense Business Development Manager for Stratasys, gave EAS IX participants a look into the most advanced aircraft manufacturing techniques currently available, and what might be possible in the near future. Traditional manufacturing techniques have relied on subtractive techniques, starting with an aluminum billet, for instance, and sawing, filing and sanding away anything that doesn’t belong on the finished part. Anyone who’s worked in a shop knows the barrels and buckets of metal shavings that fill up quickly. What if there were no materials to be recycled at the end of a production run? Additive manufacturing (AM) is a way to produce parts that grow during the process, and that don’t leave much, or any, debris afterward. Scott explained that a namesake, S. Scott Crump, invented fused deposition modeling (FDM), the 3D printing process on which most desktop 3D printers rely. He also founded Stratsys, Ltd. in 1989 with his wife Lisa. He explained the Stratasys acquired …