Safran
Aircraft equipment manufacturer Safran has announced the inauguration of an additive manufacturing campus, developed to cover research, engineering and production.
The Safran Additive Manufacturing Campus, the company Safran’s new centre of excellence, is located in Haillan, near Bordeaux in southwest France. The centre was inaugurated on October 7 by Ross McInnes, Chairman of the Safran Board of Directors, and Olivier Andriés, Chief Executive Officer, in a ceremony attended by Roland Lescure, French Minister of Industry and Alain Rousset, President of the Nouvelle Aquitaine region of southwest France.
The new 12,500 square metre facility groups research and development, engineering and production into one location. More than 100 scientists, engineers and technicians are already at work in the facility, using 3D printing with metal powders to produce components such as aircraft and engine parts.
Safran states that the new campus aims to deliver a total of 4,000 parts this year, and it expects that figure to double in 2023. Among the equipment inside the facility is a RenAM 500Q machine from Renishaw.
“We made a strategic decision to create this new centre of excellence to consolidate Safran’s expertise in additive manufacturing and accelerate the application of this disruptive technology,” said Olivier Andries, CEO of Safran. “We will be leveraging the advantages of this technology to make our new products even lighter, while enhancing their performance, and that’s the key to meeting our industry’s objective of reducing its environmental impact. A quarter of the parts in some of our engines could eventually be made using this process.”
Safran states that its top priority as a company is to contribute to the decarbonisation of aviation, which it is attempting to achieve through its work in additive manufacturing.
Safran worked with SLM Solutions last year to successfully test selective laser melting technology in production of a nose landing gear part for a bizjet.
