Sometimes, when you live and breathe a technology every day, innovation can feel slow. Sometimes it can feel like one step forward, three steps back. Perhaps that is less true in 3D printing, where there is so much white space to be explored, but the engineers doing the work know how much endeavour goes into every new feature, every incremental improvement.
At the UK’s National Centre for Additive Manufacturing, based at the MTC, we have been supporting sectors including oil and gas, defence, formula racing, automotive, medical, power generation, space and aerospace in their adoption of additive manufacturing for nearly ten years now. We are also just coming to the end of a major UK programme for aerospace called DRAMA. I have had the privilege of leading this project, working with an amazing collaboration of technology providers, research organisations and sector cluster bodies supported by leading aerospace companies through a dedicated steering group. With these two big milestones upon us, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on how far the aerospace sector has come with this technology and to talk about future directions.
Back in 2010, I remember peering through the window of a metal laser powder bed fusion machine for the first time at the University of Birmingham. The team there were trying to print a belt buckle, printing the frame and the prong in ‘one shot’. It was the first time that the real potential of metal fusion additive manufacturing came home to me.
In 2011, the newly opened MTC purchased its first additive manufacturing machine – an Arcam (now GE Additive) A2WT and we embarked upon a major project with Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace. The project was to build the largest metal 3D printed component that had flown at that time - a Trent XWB front bearing housing structure. In parallel, we started working on benchmarking activities with a number of global aerospace players. Only a few years on, in 2014 and with support from UK government, we opened the National Centre at the MTC.
Engine Air Brake is a demonstrator component developed on DRAMA – an aerospace programme led by the UK National Centre. In the project 20 companies have advanced in their adoption of additive manufacturing and case studies will be shared in early 2021, including through an online event on 27th January.
Through such collaborations, the potential of additive manufacturing to disrupt the aerospace supply chain became very clear to us. With 3D printing, the design organisation could have ever more control over the process – moving from ‘make-to-print’ (manufacturing to a printed technical drawing) to ‘make-to-file’ (pressing ‘go’ against a pre-written build plan). This could reduce the value that supply chain companies could add through their own innovation. It could also have implications for the make-buy decisions of the design organisations. In addition, 3D printing gives the opportunity to consolidate components. Fewer components means fewer suppliers, potentially driving consolidation of the supply chain. Finally, with 3D printing the ‘intelligence’ around defining the product and process moves ever further into software, so who owns the design rights becomes blurry and this, in turn, unlocks new business models. Are the rights now owned by the company carrying out the design, the company executing the process or the company who develops the software?
Norsk Titanium have estimated that they could print 1000 components on a large civil airframe. MTU has estimated that, by the year 2030, up to 15% of a Pratt and Whitney engine could be printed. More recently, BAE Systems put its supply chain “on notice” saying that 30% of the Tempest aircraft will be 3D printed. For structural components or installations, 3D printing can enable light weighting, component consolidation and sometimes also reduced space claim. The biggest gains (and so most rapid developments) though derive within systems for heat and fluid management where 3D printing can also enable better performance. The case for 3D printing for heat and fluid management is therefore compelling– assuming that the barriers to adoption (production costs, cost of qualification) can be overcome.
Alert to this potential, the aerospace Primes and Tier 1 suppliers have been investing substantial sums in the technology. BAE Systems opened a new Product Development & Process Development Centre in Samlesbury in 2017. In 2019, Airbus qualified their metal powder bed processes and production facilities in Filton under Part 21G approval and are now producing flying parts. Meggitt invested in the additive manufacturing design and make company HiETA. Next year, GKN Aerospace will open its new £32m Global Technology Centre in Bristol where additive manufacturing will be a focus.
Earlier this year, we trawled through the web to try and estimate the number of metallic aerospace components (part numbers) that have been certified for flight – either for flying test beds or serial production. It is not that many! We estimated that in total around 30 separate metallic part numbers would have been certified by 2020. We expect this might increase to 50 in 2021. In those terms, the growth of additive manufacturing in aerospace is not yet exponential. However, it is interesting to look at the number of components that it replaces. The 30 metallic additive parts certified to date replace >50 parts. GE is aiming to certify 12 printed components on their GE Catalyst engine in the near future, replacing 855 components, and pushing the total number of metal parts replaced up from >50 to around 1000 in one year.
With the firm belief that the additive manufacturing revolution will happen more quickly in aerospace if the entire supply chain is empowered, the National Centre for Additive Manufacturing was created. NCAM provides a production scale facility, with high quality technical and business guidance, state-of-the-art equipment and inspirational demonstrators, all brought to reality with relevant case studies. Supply chain companies can, and do, use the centre to help accelerate them in their journey into and through additive manufacturing. In the DRAMA programme alone in 2020 the National Centre has worked with 23 companies on metal additive adoption and additive technology development, alongside the Midlands Aerospace Alliance and Renishaw. We have worked with these companies to develop their AM strategy, accelerate their AM product development and support their production implementation. DRAMA’s final event will be held online on 27th January and, in keeping with the theme, we are calling it our Grand Finale! It is open to all and will be a fabulous opportunity to hear from the involved supply chain companies directly, as well as many others.
Covid has represented a massive setback to the aerospace sector globally. The lasting impact on additive manufacturing is not yet clear. In general, aerospace primes appear to be decreasing spend on medium term innovation – like additive manufacturing – to focus on immediate and essential business activity but also on new products for new platforms. Airbus has announced their ZEROe programme backed by research and development funding from governments. Rolls-Royce has set an ambition to enable the sectors in which they operate to reach net zero carbon by 2050 through development of new products and technologies. In parallel, innovative start-ups around the world are building new solutions for urban air mobility and electric flight including companies like Vertical Aerospace and Zero Avia. Reaction Engines and Boom Supersonic are exploring additive manufacturing for supersonic (and hypersonic!) flight. With these new aircraft, designers are likely to move towards greater integration of air frame, systems and propulsion.
The disruptive innovation in the sector and the greater integration of air frame and systems represents a major opportunity for additive manufacturing but, to exploit it, the additive manufacturing community may well have to go faster itself. In the space sector, Space X and Relativity Space are using 3D printing to reduce their product development cycles, but for space applications the burden of proof relating to human safety is not as high as for the traditional commercial aerospace sector. To take advantage of this disruption, and to maintain momentum in aerospace through this downturn, the additive community must be ready to push into these areas. The process rules and machines must be adequately robust to permit the rapid delivery of functional prototypes. Production costs, which have dropped by around 75% in the last ten years, must continue to fall. Routes must be developed for rapid qualification, and for read across of validation data from one product-process combination to another.
It has been incredible to part of the efforts of the UK’s National Centre for Additive Manufacturing and the journey of the aerospace sector over the last decade. Clearly we are only scraping the surface of what additive manufacturing can do. Despite the challenges we all face, I expect the next decade will be even more incredible.
