Aerospace 3D Printing Innovations

🚀 Our latest paper has been published in Progress in Additive Manufacturing - “Performance and microstructure analysis of cylindrical rods fabricated by dot-by-dot WAAM for aerospace applications” 📄 https://lnkd.in/d_mKjGBy In this work, we explored the use of dot-by-dot Wire-Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) to fabricate lightweight, load-bearing cylindrical rods for topologically optimized aerospace components. We focused on optimizing welding parameters, analyzing microstructures, and validating performance through destructive and non-destructive testing. Some key findings: ✅ Dot-by-dot WAAM enables significant weight savings while maintaining mechanical integrity ✅ PMC welding mode resulted in lower porosity and better mechanical performance than CMT ✅ Achieved UTS up to 187 MPa and 4.9% elongation in rods using optimized PMC settings This was a true team effort: 🤖 Yiğit HERGÜL tackled the robotic path planning 🔬 Tansu Göynük led the metallurgical analysis 🔥 Murat Yucel and Gokhan Can were the welding maestros behind the builds A huge thanks to all of them for their dedication and expertise! 📽️ Check out the video below to see our dot-by-dot WAAM process in action — featuring a load-bearing spiral structure. #AdditiveManufacturing #WAAM #WireArcAdditiveManufacturing #AerospaceEngineering #Robotics #MaterialsScience #MetalAM #Research #TopologicalOptimization #Microstructure #3DPrinting #PMC #CMT #NDT #WeldingInnovation

In December 2022, GE announced a turbine centre frame made with laser 3D printing. Just one year later, Zhang’s team presented a component larger and more complex than GE’s, the intermediate casing. Over a metre in diameter, it features bionic grooves just 15 to 35 micrometers deep – thinner than a human hair. It was previously considered impossible to manufacture such a large hard alloy component using a 3D printer while maintaining precision at such a fine scale. The intermediate casing is the most important and complex load-bearing structural component of an aviation engine. It not only connects the engine’s front intake fan and the compressor but also serves as the connection between the engine and the aircraft fuselage. The intermediate casing needs to withstand the impact of high-pressure and high-temperature gases while transmitting the engine’s thrust and torque to the aircraft. Despite being just 3mm (0.11 inch) at its thinnest point, it can bear over 10 tonnes of load, posing significant design and manufacturing challenges. Using mainstream 3D printing technology and commercial software, Zhang’s team created a prototype that is 25 per cent lighter than traditional castings, yet strong enough to withstand impacts like bird strikes.

The “Holy Grail” of Rocket Propulsion Just Got Real Aerospike engines have been aerospace’s broken promise for decades. Theoretically superior. Practically unbuildable at scale. Never flown to space. That constraint just shifted. LEAP 71 and HBD have produced the world’s largest 3D-printed aerospike engine — the XRA-2E5. One meter tall. 200 kN of thrust. Printed as a single monolithic piece in 289 continuous hours. Engineered autonomously by Noyron, LEAP 71’s computational model, without human design intervention. Why it matters for the launch economy: Conventional bell-nozzle engines bleed efficiency as altitude increases. Aerospikes maintain peak performance from sea level to vacuum — a structural advantage for fully reusable two-stage systems where both booster and upper stage must return to the launch site. This engine is sized precisely for that upper stage mission. The deeper signal here isn’t the hardware. It’s the method. Noyron encodes first-principles physics and manufacturing constraints to generate production-ready designs autonomously. The same computational DNA that produced tested 20 kN engines now scales to 200 kN — with a 2,000 kN bell-nozzle variant already in development. Speed-to-hardware is compressing. Design cycles that once took years are running in weeks. For investors tracking the next inflection point in launch infrastructure, the question is no longer whether computational engineering works. It’s how fast it scales — and who captures the resulting cost curve.

✈️ Did you know a drone can fly without conventional control surfaces? 👀 In 2020, CMASLab at ETH Zurich developed and successfully flight-tested a fixed-wing drone that controls roll, pitch, and yaw purely through shape change. 👉 No flaps 👉 No hinges 👉 No traditional moving control surfaces What makes this truly disruptive isn’t just the aerodynamics — it’s how it was built: 🧵 The entire structure was additively manufactured using continuous carbon-fiber composites 🖨️ Fabricated with the 3D-printing system developed by ETH spin-off 9T Labs 🧠 Fiber orientation was fully tailored to exploit material anisotropy and real load paths Why does this matter? Morphing structures depend on: • compliant mechanisms • complex internal geometries • deep structural integration All of which are extremely difficult — and expensive — to produce with traditional manufacturing. This project demonstrated a different path forward: ✨ Lower manufacturing costs ✨ Higher structural efficiency ✨ Improved aerodynamic performance 📌 For the first time, both the primary structure and the morphing mechanisms of a fixed-wing drone were 3D-printed in composites — and actually flown. When materials, manufacturing, and aerodynamics evolve together, we don’t just optimize designs — 👉 we redefine what aircraft structures can be. #AviationInnovation #AdvancedManufacturing #Composites #MorphingStructures #AerospaceEngineering #FutureOfFlight

Designing rocket engine components is the easy part—manufacturing them to meet all intended design requirements with repeatability and reliability is tough! Additive manufacturing (AM) enables complex geometries, eliminates the specialty skills for brazing or plating, and speeds up prototyping or production, but still has a lot of challenges. One major challenge in AM is surface texture—roughness, waviness, and form—all impacting performance in different ways. This paper represents years of research on laser powder directed energy deposition (LP-DED) for large-scale heat exchangers, such as rocket nozzles with microchannels. We explored surface finishing techniques for internal channels and their effect on friction factors, aiming to tune flow conditions to meet the design requirements. https://lnkd.in/eDxesQFx #additivemanufacturing #3DPrinting #3DPrint #aerospace #rockets #manufacturing #rocket #nasa Piero Angelo NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

Metal 3D printing will soon take place in orbit for the first time. A pioneering European-made metal 3D printer is on its way to the International Space Station on the Cygnus NG-20 resupply mission which launched yesterday. “This new 3D printer printing metal parts represents a world first, at a time of growing interest in in-space manufacturing,” explains ESA technical officer Rob Postema. “Polymer-based 3D printers have already been launched to, and used aboard the ISS, using plastic material that is heated at the printer’s head, then deposited to build up the desired object, one layer at a time. “Metal 3D printing represents a greater technical challenge, involving much higher temperatures and metal being melted using a laser. With this, the safety of the crew and the Station itself have to be ensured – while maintenance possibilities are also very limited. If successful though, the strength, conductivity and rigidity of metal would take the potential of in-space 3D printing to new heights.” Once arrived at the International Space Station, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will prepare and install the approximately 180 kg Metal 3D printer in the European Draw Rack Mark II in ESA’s Columbus module. After installation, the printer will be controlled and monitored from Earth, so the printing can take place without Andreas’s oversight. The Metal 3D Printer technology demonstrator has been developed by an industrial team led by Airbus Defence and Space SAS – also co-funding the project – under contract to ESA’s Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration. “This in-orbit demonstration is the result of close collaboration between ESA and Airbus' small, dynamic team of engineers,” comments Patrick Crescence, project manager at Airbus. “But this is not just a step into the future; it's a leap for innovation in space exploration. It paves the way for manufacturing more complex metallic structures in space. That is a key asset for securing exploration of Moon and Mars.” #ESA #ISS #Metal3DPrinter The first metal 3D printer to operate aboard the International Space Station seen during ground testing, producing an ESA-design sample part. (ESA)

In aerospace and defense manufacturing, one of the trickiest challenges has long been creating hollow composite structures with internal geometries that would typically require labor-intensive, multi-step tooling and sacrificial core removal. However, using 3D-printed wash-away cores is changing all of that. Its cores are printed with binder jet technology, coated for composite lay-up, and then washed out, eliminating severe distortion and the pain of manual extraction. The approach lets engineers create complex mandrels with controlled thermal expansion and isotropic behavior during autoclave curing, but also allows reuse of the wash-out material, adding a sustainability advantage.

The pace of innovation is accelerating....rapidly Just came across this fascinating research from Caltech that's "bringing metallurgy into the 21st century" - and and it illustrates why materials science is so exciting right now. Researchers have developed a method to 3D print metal alloys with unprecedented precision, controlling both composition AND microstructure at the microscale. The result? Copper-nickel alloys that are up to 4x stronger than traditional versions. What makes this remarkable: → Complete control over metal composition ratios → Custom-designed properties for specific applications → Potential for everything from biocompatible medical stents to ultra-durable satellite components The new approach offers significantly more control over material properties than traditional methods. Being able to precisely specify composition and predict characteristics could enable new applications across medical devices, aerospace, and other fields where material performance is critical. The technique (called HIAM - Hydrogel Infusion Additive Manufacturing) starts with 3D printing a polymer scaffold, infuses it with metal ions, then uses controlled heating to burn away the organic material and leave behind precisely engineered alloys. This is what makes this moment special for deep tech: We're witnessing the convergence of AI and materials science. Machine learning is accelerating materials discovery, while breakthroughs like this are enabling precise control over atomic-level engineering. The combination is creating possibilities we couldn't even imagine a decade ago. The world is changing rapidly, and deep tech innovations are at the center of it all. This isn't just another research paper - it's a glimpse into how we'll solve tomorrow's biggest challenges. This is why deep tech deserves serious attention right now. What industries do you think will be transformed first by this kind of precision materials engineering? https://lnkd.in/gaUeEV2g #Innovation #MaterialsScience #3DPrinting #Engineering #Research #Technology #DeepTech