Airbus partnership looks at opportunities for large scale titanium additive manufacturing
October 22, 2012
A partnership between international aircraft manufacturer Airbus, South Africa’s Aerosud and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa aims to dramatically cut aircraft component production costs through the use of titanium powder-based additive layer manufacturing.
The partnership will explore the potential for manufacturing large and complex titanium aerospace components using additive layer manufacturing (ALM), in a process dubbed Aeroswift.
Airbus’s Dale King stated that CSIR and Aerosud are the only organisations in the world doing work on high-speed, large-volume additive laser manufacturing, making them unique. “That is why we have decided to forge a partnership with them [the CSIR and Aerosud],”commented King. “We came to South Africa for this project because we believe the country has the necessary skills and competencies in the field of LAM.”
He said that if the technology succeeds it would flow into Airbus’ supply chain where the parts developed through the project will be used, once tested and evaluated, in Airbus manufactured aircraft.
CSIR National Laser Centre Manager, Dr Ndumiso Cingo, stated, “The signing of this collaboration agreement represents a major step in ensuring that we develop laser additive manufacturing technologies with inputs from our industry partners to make sure that these technologies are relevant when they are commercialised.”
Posted by: Paul Whittaker, Editor ipmd.net, [email protected]
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