30 Years Of Innovation: Steady And Long Lasting FDM Is Ideal For Aerospace

To keep our 30^th anniversary event going, this month we are putting the spotlight on among the most popular 3D printing technologies: Merged Deposition Modeling (FDM). Each month considering that our anniversary in June of this year, we’ve been doing a deep dive on a different technology to show that there is not a one-size-fits-all technique to 3D printing. Keep reading to discover why FDM’s strengths lead to long lasting prints, and why it is the trusted go-to for aerospace and other industries that count on qualified manufacturing.

As our Production Supervisor for FDM, Christof Van Poucke, states, “FDM is overall a terrific technology to work with. It’s quick, which is excellent for both prototyping and end-use parts in low quantities of smaller sizes.”

Though FDM machines are one of the most common innovations for home printers, clients rely on i.materialise to reach the next level of 3D printing. Our commercial-grade makers supply finer information, larger prints, and much better quality.

i.materialise 3D prints designs in ABS utilizing FDM innovation, and i.materialise’s parent business Materialise is able to offer a broader selection, consisting of engineering plastics for the aerospace industry.

Since its arrival at Materialise in 2003, FDM has actually shown to be a dependable addition to our offering, both in terms of mechanical homes gradually and quality of the prints. One significant element adding to its reliability is the resilience of the materials: the variety of materials offered on FDM is not only substantial, however includes some plastics that are understood for their excellent properties, including flame retardancy, dealing with heavy loads, thermal resistance, and more. Another significant aspect is the innovation itself: it’s a steady technology which lets us repeatedly produce the same parts and, from these versions, attain a high level of accuracy.

Likewise, Materialise’s knowledge resources indicate that we can offer consumers more than simply a print: “Materialise has decades of experience in data preparation and creating for 3D printing. This suggests we deal with customers to make parts much better matched for 3D printing, such as integrating parts to make one assembly-free part or decreasing bulk to make prints more light-weight while keeping the same strength. We have additional functions at our fingertips too, such as including infill structures and enhancing ribs, adjusting wall density and shape lines, and other modification methods,” says Christof.

Excellent Match For Certified Production

Ensuring a consistent, high-quality 3D print every time is essential in industries such as aerospace, automobile, and engine in order to protect guests. That is why there are a series of accreditations that business need to get and keep to become a supplier.

The 3 most crucial aspects of qualified manufacturing are reliability, repeatability, and quality. FDM checks all 3 of these boxes, making it an excellent match.

This certified production process has a chain of strenuous steps. There are a number of process outputs which need to be taken a look at, consisting of tensile, density, and dimensional crosses. These requirement to be analyzed over time and according to the device. The settings on the devices themselves are controlled by a fixed set of criteria.

As Christof puts it, “Change control is very important when it comes to certified production. Whenever we make any adjustment to the devices, we need to do a total validation of the machine again prior to it can be up and running. We evaluate if the parts are as strong as previously and if the measurements are still the very same. So there’s a great deal of examining ‘behind the scenes’ so to speak.”

Then there are ecological conditions that might also affect the parts. “We continually keep an eye on the humidity and temperature in our FDM rooms. If we surpass a particular threshold, we understand that the parts will not pass our quality requirements,” states Christof.

Aerospace accreditations

FDM’s reliability, ability to control specifications, and variety of certified materials make it perfect for qualified production, which the aerospace industry counts on.

FDM prints are an exceptional match to fulfill the aerospace market’s requirements.

In addition, Materialise is certified under EN9100 and EASA Part 21G, indicating that we are an authorized producer of flight-ready aerospace parts. Both certifications are a credit to the Materialise quality management system, with an unique focus on documentation and traceability for aerospace.

“Full traceability is extremely crucial when it comes to licensed manufacturing. We need to authorize the providers we get our raw products from, and each material batch is checked upon arrival to inspect whether it is within the specified specifications. If it’s not, then we need to put it in quarantine and send it back,” says Christof.

All of these steps require persistent logging of all the details on the production of each specific part, which is done through Materialise software Streamics. The data is saved for 15 years in case, for instance, a supplier remembers a product batch. This step would enable us to track all parts produced from that particular material batch and inform the customers.

Cooperation with Airbus

“Plane first concerned Materialise for additive production of flying parts back in 2015. FDM was the finest match in terms of technology because of its process stability and repeatability, in combination with top-quality engineering plastics, such as Ultem,” says Gert Brabants, Task Supervisor for Aerospace.

One of the essential reasons Jet turned to additive manufacturing is the little series production. According to Gert, “If you want to utilize injection molding for manufacturing you produce around the scale of a thousand parts in one month. If you just need a few parts a month, additive manufacturing makes good sense due to the fact that you do not need to storage facility the extra parts and you do not have the common changeover costs in your assembly line.

“From a supply chain viewpoint, it also makes a lot of sense. Rather of handling hundreds of providers producing a couple of parts in small series, a company like Plane can produce numerous parts on a flexible assembly line, like additive production offers.”

FDM has yet another advantage when it comes to aerospace, which is a brief lead time. “Each hour that an airplane is grounded for repair work and upkeep can cost approximately EUR100,000. That indicates that if there are parts that need to be changed, they require to be guaranteed to be delivered by an extremely particular time. That method the team has the part in hand and can make the necessary changes quickly,” states Gert.

Licensed Post-Processing

Given that dealing with Airplane in 2015, Materialise has 3D printed parts that are both visible to passengers and hidden from view. Materialise has actually supplied thousands of brackets and cable guides for a number of airplane families, and in 2018, Materialise made the first-ever 3D-printed visible part on an Airplane industrial airplane.

The part was a spacer panel for the overhead baggage compartment. Not only was Materialise able to deliver the personalized part quickly at a cost-effective price-point for small series, 3D printing might also make the part 15% lighter.

“It’s one of the first examples where we actually used all the advantages additive production can use. When we actually start creating for AM, we can make use of much more of its potential. Not just cost savings for little series and supply chain benefits, but also weight savings, part combinations and increased style complexity can be realized without increasing expenses,” states Gert.

And among the other significant factors? The post-processing of the part might be done at Materialise. Just as the other elements of making parts for aerospace are extremely regulated and need to fall within tight specs, so do the post-processing steps.

According to Gert, “Due to the specific fire regulations for aerospace, painting parts needs to be done according to a high standard, where micrometer accuracy is required from our painters. What this does is abide by the stringent flammability and toxicity standards needed for aerospace parts, while using the very same feel and look as any other part of the aircraft interior.”

FDM’s reliability and low preparation in addition to Materialise’s accreditation, expertise, and end-to-end manufacturing have made it a trusted innovation for licensed manufacturing.

Are you all set to start your FDM project? Upload your style to i.materialise today and get an extra 10% when you use the code 30Y_FDM at checkout.