Numerous aerospace companies have identified additive manufacturing as a game-changing technology — however it is only in the last decade that significant progress has been made beyond prototyping within our industry . Confidence and capability in additive manufacturing are growing and have expanded the material focus beyond plastics to include various metal alloys . In 2015 , GE Aviation achieved FAA clearance of the first metal additive manufacturing part — an inlet temperature sensor inside a GE engine . This year , Honeywell achieved FAA certification for the first flight-critical engine part using metal additive manufacturing . These significant milestones demonstrate the impact that this technology has already had on aerospace .
Additive manufacturing is important to the aerospace industry due to its ability to produce parts that could never be manufactured using traditional methods , and often with decreased lead times . The design freedom that additive manufacturing unlocks includes both part consolidations , and topologically optimized structures . Fastening or welding processes can be greatly reduced for various designs while simplifying the design process through fast iterations . Additive manufacturing has been demonstrated to be a leading solution for any component that has a complex geometry with long lead times — including forgings , castings , or wrought alternatives . It should be noted that although the core benefits of additive manufacturing do leverage re-designs , business cases can still successfully be developed to support replacements of complex , traditionally manufactured parts .
Triumph Group has understood the strategic value of additive manufacturing for many years , leading to the 2018 acquisition of multiple metal additive manufacturing machines . The core focus of Triumph Group ’ s investment and maintained utilization of additive manufacturing is to preserve a competitive edge across all market sectors . They have realized that the many benefits of additive manufacturing are difficult to achieve while maintaining a conventional part production mindset . To ease this difficult transition , Triumph has first targeted direct part replacements of currently produced parts .
This has helped disseminate knowledge of design limitations and guidelines across the company to prepare for the next phase of additive manufacturing implementations which will target re-designs and part consolidation .
46 NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS