ISMR July/August 2022 | Page 23

FOCUS ON ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

The Sky Guardian UAV flew in 2020 with an additively manufactured NACA inlet made of Titanium Ti6Al4V .
of software used in the market , including scanning software , printer software and inspection software . Grand View Research expects the scanning software segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 21.7 % from 2022 to 2030 .
According to Grand View Research , the prototyping segment accounted for a revenue share of more than 55 %. The prototyping process is used extensively across several industries and industry verticals . Incumbents of the automotive and aerospace & defence industries particularly use prototyping to precisely design and develop parts , components and complex systems . Prototyping allows manufacturers to achieve higher accuracy and develop reliable end products .
Other applications considered as part of the study include tooling and functional parts . Functional parts include smaller joints and other metallic hardware required for connecting components . The accuracy and precise sizing of these functional parts are of paramount importance while developing machinery and systems . As a result , incumbents of several industries and industry verticals are putting a strong emphasis on designing and building functional parts with the utmost precision . Hence , the functional parts segment is expected to grow at a significant CAGR of 21.4 % from 2022 to 2030 .
“ The automotive segment accounted for a revenue share of more than 19 %. Based on vertical , the market has been further segmented into industrial additive manufacturing and desktop additive manufacturing . The automotive segment falls under industrial additive manufacturing along with aerospace & defence and healthcare , among others . The healthcare segment is poised for significant growth in line with the growing adoption of additive manufacturing to develop artificial tissues and muscles replicating natural tissues for use in replacement surgeries ,” added the analyst .
The hardware segment accounted for a revenue share of more than 60 %, said Grand View Research .
“ The strong emphasis that manufacturing entities continued to put on pursuing advanced manufacturing practices and rapid prototyping allowed the hardware segment to dominate the market . The hardware segment is poised for significant growth over the forecast period owing to various factors such as rapid industrialisation , the growing demand for consumer electronics products ; the continued development of civil infrastructure ; rapid urbanisation and optimised labour costs ,” explained the analyst .
Aerospace and defence market
According to Fortune Business Insights , the aerospace & defence additive manufacturing market size was US $ 3.58 billion in 2020 . It projects the market to grow from US $ 3.73- billion in 2021 to US $ 13.01 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 19.51 % during the 2021-2028 period .
“ Factors such as the rising adoption of manufacturing 3D-printed defence parts and rising demand from aerospace & defence , automotive , healthcare and others will boost the growth of the market during the forecast period . Additionally , the integration of additive manufacturing towards space exploration missions will increase the footprint of the market ,” it said .
Additive manufacturing has become a tool for designing , testing , tooling and manufacturing in the aerospace sector which extends beyond the manufacture of aircraft into ground assistance , maintenance and repair systems . Repair parts are manufactured on demand where and when necessary ( such as in extreme environments , on a ship or on the battlefield ). This has a particularly high effect
3D-printed bicycle ( AP Works ).
on military supplies where a large amount of inventory is continuously maintained to ensure readiness for operations . It could also lead to increased reliability and a significant decrease in both delivery times and logistical footprint essential for warfare and peacekeeping missions to run smoothly .
“ The aerospace sector is typically not a mass production industry but is instead characterised by complex low-volume manufacture which plays directly to the strengths of metal AM ( and specifically the Laser Powder Bed Fusion ( L-PBF ) process ), when compared to traditional metal manufacturing processes . In an area that is highly competitive , where conventional manufacturing processes are costly — especially for metal components produced in relatively low volumes — and with supply chains constantly under pressure to conform to ever more stringent environmental performance restrictions , the aerospace sector needs to become more agile . Metal AM processes , with the ability to manufacture innovative geometrically complex parts in a timely , local , and cost-effective way , have a huge part to play ,” commented Will Dick- Cleland , Process Technology Team , Alloyed .
AM ’ s disruptive potential for the aerospace sector is widely acknowledged , holding out the opportunity to break the typical compromise between scale and scope in manufacturing firstly by reducing the capital expenditure required to achieve economies of scale , and secondly by increasing the variety of designs that a given amount of capital expenditure can produce . One AM platform can build a number of complicated parts with variable designs and this means that large , centralised factories with assembly lines are not always required . With AM complexity , production change- overs and customisation are cheaper .
www . ismr . net | ISMR July / August 2022 | 23