How Collins Aerospace Is Preparing To 3D Print Aircraft Engine Parts
In response to aircraft-industry customer demand, Collins Aerospace is preparing to manufacture turbine engine components that once might have been made through machining and brazing through laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing instead. The company has experience with LPBF for producing land-based turbine parts. The aircraft engine work will entail higher production rates. Collins’ response is an addition to its West Des Moines, Iowa, production site housing two LPBF machines with 12 lasers apiece. The same addition houses postprocessing capabilities including depowdering, cleaning, EDM cutoff and heat treat. The result is that component types that used to require a supply chain to produce now can be made almost entire within a single large room. Watch this video filmed during Peter Zelinski's visit to the facility.
RELATED
More about the West Des Moines additive manufacturing facility, including the economic case for AM and path to validating the additive process for aircraft parts: https://www.additivemanufacturing.med...
12-laser machine in use at the Collins facility: https://www.additivemanufacturing.med...
Another Collins Aerospace additive manufacturing installation we visited - the AM facility in Monroe, North Carolina, supporting AM production throughout Collins: https://www.additivemanufacturing.med...
Love this stuff? Subscribe to The BuildUp, our newsletter on 3D printing for industrial production: https://gbm.media/JoinTheBuildUp