"Even though we already have tens of thousands of AM parts – the majority made from polymer and more and more from metal flying on Airbus serial aircraft families – there is still some work to be done to reap the full benefit of high volume applications, which are product-cost and performance-driven," explains Jérôme Rascol, Head of Additive Manufacturing Platform, at Airbus.

The 5 challenges of additive manufacturing in aerospace

The international consultancy firm Deloitte has identified five challenges of additive manufacturing that are currently stopping it from heading towards mass adoption, noting that “continuing advances in AM technology and materials science are likely to address these limitations and are expected to drive wider adoption of additive manufacturing in the aviation industry”.

Let’s take a closer look at these five key challenges with additive manufacturing.

Challenge #1: Size limitations

The current inability to manufacture large and odd-sized parts is one of the biggest challenges of additive manufacturing within the aviation industry. According to Deloitte, additive manufacturing especially underperforms, compared to traditional manufacturing, when it comes to the production of certain large aircraft components.

Several AM providers and research institutes are already working on addressing this challenge, among these, UK company BAE systems, who used AM to manufacture a 1.2-meter titanium wingspear in collaboration with Cranfield University.

Challenge #2: Quality consistency

At the moment, additive manufacturing faces certain challenges with quality consistency, especially in producing fully dense metal parts. One expert that Deloitte interviewed noted:

»Currently, the strength in the plane of layers is not uniform. Those are issues to be dealt with. In principle, you can deal with those quite well because you have access to each layer and the entire geometry. You can see every layer being laid down. I see these as temporary hiccups to getting good-quality parts, because, in principle, you can do a 100 percent computerized inspection in a completely automated process.«

Aviation company executives have also raised concerns about the repeatability of the current additive manufacturing systems, noting that the majority of the current metal AM systems only offer an accuracy of about 30-40 microns.

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Five challenges of additive manufacturing in the aviation industry