Norsk Titanium has delivered an additively manufactured flight critical aircraft structure to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI).
GA-ASI, a developer of unmanned aircraft systems and a prime contractor to the US Department of Defense, will now put the aerospace-grade structural titanium components through testing and evaluation. Norsk Titanium and GA-ASI have been working together since 2021.
The components were manufactured with Norsk Titanium’s patented Rapid Plasma Deposition (RPD) direct energy 3D printing process. RPD uses titanium wire, which is melted in an inert, argon gas environment, to build parts to a near-net-shape, with the process being monitored more than 600 times per second for quality assurance.
Norsk Titanium’s RPD process is aerospace OEM-qualified, with GA-ASI’s Additive Design & Manufacturing Center of Excellence requesting parts made with the process as part of a development contract. With the parts now delivered, GA-ASI will conduct destructive testing in support of specification and part development.
“General Atomics has been dedicated to maturing directed energy additive and implementing it in their production programs,” commented Nicholas Mayer, Norsk Titanium Vice President of Commercial. “After an extensive collaborative qualification effort over the past few years with Norsk Titanium GA-ASI plans to apply the qualified process to structural components within their next generation platforms currently under development, and is planning on their first flight of a critical, structurally loaded component, within the 2024-2025 timeframe.”
