[ Additive Manufacturing ]
[ Additive Manufacturing ]
Airbus pioneers titanium 3D printing
Picture an aircraft industry where the toughest structural components of an airliner – parts that handle stress and fatigue – are grown from a spool of wire, rather than being carved out of blocks of metal as is the norm today. In fact, that’ s starting to become a reality in Airbus’ factories as they prepare for the future.
Text & images by Airbus
The technology in question is a 3D printing technique called wire-Directed Energy Deposition( w-DED). This uses a new additive manufacturing approach with titanium to create structural aircraft parts with less resulting material waste, compared with the traditional subtractive methods such as machining from plate or forging.
How does w-DED work? The technique uses a multi-axis robotic arm, armed with a spool of titanium wire, moving with digital precision. Energy, in the form of a laser, plasma, or electron beam is focused onto the wire, instantly melting it and fusing it layer-by-layer onto a surface. Superficially similar to welding, but with a 3D model as its guide, it prints the object from the‘ ground up’ into what is known as a‘ blank’. This blank looks very much like the final required shape, i. e.‘ near net shaped’, which subsequently undergoes a quick machining to conform to the exact dimensions of the part design.
3D printing for large parts While 3D printing with metals in aerospace has been used for around a decade, up until now, it has mostly been used for smaller components. These conventional systems, called powder-bed printers, were typically optimised for making parts less than two feet long. w-DED, on the other hand, allows Airbus to move from printing small components to creating large, structural titanium parts up to seven meters( over 23 feet) long. The new
The new process boosts production from hundreds of grammes / hour to several kilograms / hour.
process promises to be faster than powder-bed 3D printing, boosting production from hundreds of grammes per hour to several kilograms per hour. This leap could make 3D printing viable for industrial, high-volume manufacturing of large structural components for commercial aircraft.
Reducing Ti raw material waste Why focus on titanium? While the metal is essential for aircraft due to its strength, lightness and compatibility with modern carbon fibre composite structures( such as corrosion resistance, relative expansion coefficients and other properties), titanium is also a highvalue raw material, so conserving it is paramount. Consider that traditional forging, i. e. machining a part from a solid block, creates a high proportion of raw material waste. This is measured by the‘ buy-to-fly’ ratio – the amount of raw material purchased versus the amount that actually flies in the aircraft. In traditional methods, one might need to recycle between 80 % and 95 % of the titanium originally bought. With w-DED, such waste is mostly prevented at source. This is because the part is grown into a shape that is already very close to the final design( a near net shape), there is very little left to machine away.
56 Stainless Steel World June 2026 www. stainless-steel-world. net