CompositesWorld
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27 CompositesWorld.com NEWS N E W S N S N E W S E N W S W 3D-Printed Tooling OEMS at the forefornt Boeing and Airbus are following this trend, closely. Boeing was an early adopter, and began 3D printing as early as the 1980s, says Mike Vander Wel, head of equipment and tool engineering for Boeing Commercial Airplanes: "We were pushing the envelope back then. In the past few years we've been looking harder at this, and integrating it into our operations more systematically." Vander Wel notes that it has been an "evolutionary, not a revolu- tionary" journey, and says, "It is absolutely viable as a technology, for both parts and tools." He cites three factors for Boeing's increasing adoption of the technology: the cost of printing itself has dropped, material cost has also decreased and the degree of innovation is changing radically, resulting in continuous improvements. Vander Wel points out that AM'd tooling enables the company to accelerate design cycles: "In the past, it was long lead times to get parts and tooling to the factory foor, but with this technology we can turn around design concepts much faster." Te cultural change has been encouraged by the fact that Boeing has made industrial 3D printing machines — mostly Stra- tasys Fortus 400 and 900 systems — directly available to engineers right at its manufacturing sites, to encourage experimentation and use. Further, Boeing has partnered, since 2005, with the Lotus Formula 1 auto racing team to test and incorporate 3D printing technologies into its extremely fast vehicle development cycles — cycles that the aircraft OEM can't match. Tat partnership led to a Boeing patent on the use of chopped and milled recycled carbon fber (from its composites fabrication waste) to create stronger printed parts, reportedly with isotropic distribution of short fbers (see "Learn More"). Vander Well credits AM tools with helping to keep costs low and schedules in line for the company's high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) Phantom Eye and newer Phantom Swift vertical-takeof-and-landing (VTOL) prototype UAVs (see "Learn More") developed by Boeing Phantom Works (St. Louis, MO, US). Nick Melillo, of Boeing R&D;, spoke in 2013 at the SAMPE Europe conference in Paris about the use of low-cost AM tooling and how it reduced Phantom Eye development cost, without adversely afecting the vehicle's design. Te prototype Phantom Eye has a 46m wingspan, and its huge wingskins were made with out-of-autoclave-capable prepregs layed up on AM tooling (see Fig. 2, p. 23), as were many other of the aircraft's structural parts. Melillo was unreserved in his praise, "3D printing for tooling and parts is going gangbusters." From TAPES to SHAPES . ....... +1 508.573.7979 l sales@webindustries.com FOLLOW US COMPOSITES DEVELOPERS AND PART FABRICATORS rely on Web Industries and CAD Cut for commercial-scale, best-in-class prepreg formatting. We practically defned the industry standards for precision slitting and spooling of prepreg slit tape, and we're a qualifed partner on nearly all major AFP and ATL lines. Our automated ply cutting and ply kitting services offer easy to order, easy to install single- SKU supply solutions for hand lay-up. And with four production centers worldwide, we're strategically positioned to support your composite aerostructure fabrication operations. Why would you trust your materials to anyone else? The most trusted composite formatter for the world's most stringent aerospace programs. AS/EN9100C, ISO 9001 & 14001 © 2015 Web Industries, Inc. All rights reserved. The Boeing Phantom Eye UAV's huge 46m prepreg wingskins were layed up on 3D-printed tooling.