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I was a structural engineer for Sikorsky. I think it's obvious we will not be replacing a machined titanium main rotor hub with a 3D printed part soon. The arti

I was a structural engineer for Sikorsky. I think it's obvious we will not be replacing a machined titanium main rotor hub with a 3D printed part soon. The article touches on this. It will probably be non-structural components like buttons on an MFD.

monocasa 6y ago
The super draco combustion chambers made by space x are 3d printed. I'm not saying they're the best fit for everything, but saying they'll be relegated to button on an MFD is probably too far on the other end of the spectrum.
- icegreentea2 6y ago
  Form is function in high performance manufacturing (including most of aerospace). Just switch materials is a huge deal. If you set out with "use additive manufacturing" as one of your requirements/design goals, you can probably use additive manufacturing in a lot of aero. Using additive manufacturing to drop in replace existing parts that were made with different materials and techniques is very unlikely however.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    Oh absolutely. There's no way you can just drop a scan in to solid works, send it to the printer and call it a day. Some serious engineering needs to occur to change manufacturing processes. That's probably not a deal breaker in the grand scheme of things is all I'm saying.
kbenson 6y ago
I was going to write a reply saying that I don't see why we can't use it in many places as long as we understand the parameters of the product, but as so often happens I found an excellent source that actually explains your stance in details.[1] The TL;DR is that there are lots of imperfections in 3D printed parts, which means they typically fail at much lower stresses. It actually includes some pretty good video illustrating this at a microscopic level. That said, there are apparently new techniques being researched and discovered that have promise to increase the quality of 3D printed parts. One way to thing of it is that we have hundreds to thousands of years of experience in material science with forming metals in other manners, and we've just started with additive engineering, so there's a lot of room for improvement. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzBRYsiyxjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzBRYsiyxjI

monocasa 6y ago

The super draco combustion chambers made by space x are 3d printed. I'm not saying they're the best fit for everything, but saying they'll be relegated to button on an MFD is probably too far on the other end of the spectrum.

icegreentea2 6y ago
Form is function in high performance manufacturing (including most of aerospace). Just switch materials is a huge deal. If you set out with "use additive manufacturing" as one of your requirements/design goals, you can probably use additive manufacturing in a lot of aero. Using additive manufacturing to drop in replace existing parts that were made with different materials and techniques is very unlikely however.
- monocasa 6y ago
  Oh absolutely. There's no way you can just drop a scan in to solid works, send it to the printer and call it a day. Some serious engineering needs to occur to change manufacturing processes. That's probably not a deal breaker in the grand scheme of things is all I'm saying.

kbenson 6y ago

I was going to write a reply saying that I don't see why we can't use it in many places as long as we understand the parameters of the product, but as so often happens I found an excellent source that actually explains your stance in details.[1] The TL;DR is that there are lots of imperfections in 3D printed parts, which means they typically fail at much lower stresses. It actually includes some pretty good video illustrating this at a microscopic level. That said, there are apparently new techniques being researched and discovered that have promise to increase the quality of 3D printed parts. One way to thing of it is that we have hundreds to thousands of years of experience in material science with forming metals in other manners, and we've just started with additive engineering, so there's a lot of room for improvement. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzBRYsiyxjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzBRYsiyxjI