Airbus has achieved a 3D printing first with the installation of a 3D printed titanium bracket on a series production commercial aircraft. Manufactured by Arconic, a global technology, engineering, and advanced manufacturing company, the 3D printed titanium bracket was installed on a series production Airbus commercial aircraft, the A350 XWB.
Basic trends in modern manufacturing are driving growth in 3D optical metrology. “One is the highly complex and high-tech material that manufacturers are using today. For example, in the aerospace turbine blade market, they simply cannot touch the part like they used to—the surface finish of the material is too readily affected by any kind of contact metrology."
Ongoing exchange between CAD/CAM software technology developers and cutting tool manufacturers is an excellent illustration of how technology collaborations can create productivity gains in manufacturing. Several examples involve our company and cutting tool manufacturers.
The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) (Ann Arbor, MI) and Moog Inc. (East Aurora, NY) have signed a contract to perform co-funded work in support of applying Moog’s VeriPart solution, adapting blockchain technology for additive manufacturing.
Drilling advancements have spurred the evolution of oil and gas operations from simplistic single-well pad fields to more complex multi-well pads. Today, many producers are using fracking and lateral drilling techniques to place 10 or more wells on one pad.
Erik Anderson, president and CEO of Basin Precision Machining LLC, has determined that setups are the root of all evil when it comes to manufacturing productivity. They cause part variations, downtime, and high-percentage scrap rates.
CAD/CAM developer CNC Software Inc. (Tolland, CT) announced the release of Mastercam 2019, which was developed to streamline the manufacturing process from job setup to job completion.
While EDMs offer the benefits of holding tight tolerances, working on nearly any metal, and being well suited for delicate or fragile parts, knowledgeable operators for the machines are increasingly hard to find and robots can’t always fill the gap. Automated processes in the machines, newer designs and features of Industry 4.0 are helping to solve the problem.
In auto racing, small details have a major impact on success—a concept very familiar to performance racing parts provider Oliver Racing Parts (Charlevoix, MI). Oliver produces performance connecting rods for the world’s leading engine builders.
Sciaky Inc. (Chicago) has staked its claim to being the leading provider of metal 3D printing solutions for large parts approved for land, sea, air, and space applications, with the latest success being its Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM) technology. Sciaky was called upon to manufacture a titanium variable ballast (VB) tank for a submarine manufacturer.
