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Printer The Almighty Buck Businesses Transportation Technology

Boeing Expects To Save Millions In Dreamliner Costs Using 3D-Printed Titanium Parts (reuters.com) 73

According to Reuters, Boeing has hired Norsk Titanium AS to print titanium parts for its 787 Dreamliner, paving the way to cost savings of $2 million to $3 million for each plane. The 3D-printed metal parts will replace pieces made with more expensive traditional manufacturing, thus making the 787 more profitable. From the report: Strong, lightweight titanium alloy is seven times more costly than aluminum, and accounts for about $17 million of the cost of a $265 million Dreamliner, industry sources say. Boeing has been trying to reduce titanium costs on the 787, which requires more of the metal than other models because of its carbon-fiber composite fuselage and wings. Titanium also is used extensively on Airbus Group SE's rival A350 jet. Norsk worked with Boeing for more than a year to design four 787 parts and obtain Federal Aviation Administration certification for them, Chip Yates, Norsk Titanium's vice president of marketing, said. Norsk expects the U.S. regulatory agency will approve the material properties and production process for the parts later this year, which would "open up the floodgates" and allow Norsk to print thousands of different parts for each Dreamliner, without each part requiring separate FAA approval, Yates said. Norsk said that initially it will print in Norway, but is building up a 67,000-square-foot (6,220-square-meter) facility in Plattsburgh in upstate New York, where it aims to have nine printers running by year-end.
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Boeing Expects To Save Millions In Dreamliner Costs Using 3D-Printed Titanium Parts

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    It's great to see that 3D printing is being touted as a cost saving measure here. I typically see 3D printing in the context of "innovative", but not really cost effective; perhaps we've hit the inflection point where the technology is mature enough to truly disrupt established industries.

    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @06:09AM (#54212327)

      Mass production of an aircraft isn't at the same scale as mass producing a car. Your speed to produce parts needs to keep up with demand. So if it takes a 3D printer 72 hours to print the part. Vs hiring a machinist full time to do it in 24 hours and you will only need the part once a month. You are better off with the 3D printer. However if the demand goes up to 10 parts per month the machinist may be a better alternative. It isn't always cost per part, but total cost of production during the production lifecycle.
      3D printers have a niche but I don't see the fully 3D printed assembly lines in the near future. Just like many of today's printing presses are still printing presses which follow the same concept of Gutenberg you have a shaped indent and you squish the ink on the paper. . And not just shooting out of laser printers. The laser printer would be too expensive for large runs of printing the same thing. But for the office where we will be printing small quantities of different things, the laser printer is more efficient.

      • The real reason it is economical to print titanium parts is because titanium is so expensive. Adding additional printers is cheaper then the titanium on the floor after milling.
        • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @06:42AM (#54212387)

          Titanium scraps can be recycled, although there is a cost in doing so. I think an additional reason is 3D printing may allow parts to be created with less titanium. They can have hollow areas or achieve shapes that milling can't.

          My concern would be in part strength. AFAIK, 3D printed metal is typically weaker than forged and milled metal. Maybe things have progressed or these particular parts don't need "full titanium" strength.

          • by Anonymous Coward

            Well, you better call up Boeing. I'm pretty sure their lack of engineers will thank you for your contribution.

          • by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @08:56AM (#54212805) Homepage

            Titanium scraps can be recycled, although there is a cost in doing so. I think an additional reason is 3D printing may allow parts to be created with less titanium. They can have hollow areas or achieve shapes that milling can't.

            My concern would be in part strength. AFAIK, 3D printed metal is typically weaker than forged and milled metal. Maybe things have progressed or these particular parts don't need "full titanium" strength.

            Titanium is also a pain in the butt to machine. We figure 2-3x more machining cost compared to the same part made of 403/420/422 stainless.

            This part of the article is particularly informative-
            General Electric Co is already printing metal fuel nozzles for aircraft engines. But Norsk and Boeing said the titanium parts are the first printed structural components designed to bear the stress of an airframe in flight.

            Gas turbine fuel nozzles are a very complicated shape and have relatively thin walls. In other words, a nightmare to machine conventionally. They have to withstand very high temperatures, but mechanical stress is low. Additive manufacturing makes a lot of sense for these parts.

            Load bearing parts, on the other hand, will have higher mechanical stress, and traditionally this is where additive manufacturing is vastly inferior to traditional manufacturing. It may also prove much more difficult to inspect the parts. You can 3d print a beautiful part with a complex hollow or honeycomb shape designed to keep material costs to the absolute minimum, but how do you inspect it? Magnetic particle Nondestructive examination (NDE) is not viable, since titanium isn't magnetic. Ultrasonic NDE inspection doesn't do well with complex shapes due to all the odd reflections generated. Dye Penetrant NDE will only find surface defects. The only other reasonable option is Xray NDE, which is fine for some parts, but very difficult if the geometry is too complex.

            With a conventionally manufactured part, you normally inspect the billet or bar before starting machining. With additive manufactured load bearing parts, there is no easy inspection method, either during manufacture or in-service, for complex geometries.

            • You can 3d print a beautiful part with a complex hollow or honeycomb shape designed to keep material costs to the absolute minimum, but how do you inspect it?

              We can make transparent aluminium, surely we can make transparent titanium.

            • Continuous or periodic visual inspection is possible during the part builds (i.e. - video evaluation of each layer using high magnification cameras) to evaluate the layer conditions. You're looking for flays in the material, most of which are introduced due to stresses in the machining or fabrications process, whereas for the printed parts you're primarily looking for proper bonding and geometry (out of calibration printer components). Depending on your build schedule, you can non-destructively test every p

          • This doesn't appear to be like sintering, it is more like welding titanium wire to create the basic form and then milling it to the final dimensions.
            To quote Norsk's brochure about why this is better:
            "One component of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner requires 40 pounds of titanium to be machined down to each 1 pound that flies on the airplane, illustrating the inefficiency of legacy forging techniques.
            Norsk Titanium’s revolutionary additive manufacturing solution preserves the strength and weight benefit
          • I'm no metallurgist, but SpaceX and Boeing have been making 3D printed structural components for years, just on an experimental basis as far as I know. I saw a lattice produced for something (landing gear IIRC), and the comment was that the micro-truss lattice structure gave comparable strength to the milled part, but was 30-40% lighter. They do finite element analysis on each tiny member and optimize the system to a degree that was impossible with the milled part (hence the reliance on virgin Titanium).
        • by DrXym ( 126579 )
          Boeing is contractually obliged to deliver aircraft to agreed specifications such as weight, takeoff speed, cruising speed etc. subject to penalties if they don't. A large aircraft probably has hundreds of parts milled or cast from solid material that could potentially be printed with a honeycomb / lattice saving a huge amount of weight.

          That's where the cost savings lie - avoiding the penalties of failing to meet their contract and delivering a faster, more fuel efficient aircraft.

    • but not really cost effective

      The savings are not in the process but in the flexibility of the final product. 3D printing allows for designs that aren't typically realisable or if they were manually milled would result in excessive material waste.

      I remember an example that showed a valve manifold that rather than being a traditional block with holes drilled looked like a series of tubes in a lattice. Firstly it cost less than half of the traditional counterpart, but secondly it was feather light and yet on stress tests performed almost

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @05:40AM (#54212267)
  • I have a hard time believing that metal 3D-printed parts could ever be as strong as die-cast parts, which are nowhere near as strong as CNC-milled parts. The metal "grain" in a 3D-printed part would be to disorganized to have high tensile strength, leading to brittleness.
    • by 50000BTU_barbecue ( 588132 ) on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @06:28AM (#54212361) Journal

      Shit, better tell Boeing before the first takeoff. I bet they never thought of that. Milled parts aren't strong enough either, that's why they're casted and heat-treated in all kinds of ways... Every heard of single-crystal turbine blades?

      https://www.theengineer.co.uk/... [theengineer.co.uk]

      So the 3D printed part is just a "blank" that gets toasted. It's probably easier to get all the holes in there that way.

      • by w3woody ( 44457 )

        Came here to say more or less the same thing.

        Depending on where the part is used and how the part is made, I'd be concerned with the integrity of the part over time. Remember: airplanes tend to fly for a half-century before they're scrapped--and if the part is used somewhere structural which is hard to access or hard to replace, chances are it won't be inspected or replaced as regularly as the FAA would like, simply because long-haul aircraft are turned around rather rapidly. (The financial incentive is for

        • More like 25-30 years. The fifth D check is almost never worth it because by then the rest value of an aircraft might be less than the cost of the D check (due to corrosion and accumulated weigth of doublers that close skin cracks) and a new plane would be vastly more efficient anyway. Often aircraft is even retired shortly before the fourth D check time comes (after about 25 years of service).

    • When you consider what types of parts that can be made from printing in metal, they parts quite likely come out stronger than milling because it isn't possible for any shape to be milled. Also consider that not every part needs to be structural, and those that are, if the raw material isn't as strong you can re-design the part to be bigger. Since titanium is lighter than steel, you can have a bigger part and still come out with lower weight. NASA uses it [extremetech.com] as does GE. [3ders.org]
      • Re:Sounds dangerous (Score:4, Informative)

        by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @08:33AM (#54212717)

        SpaceX is also planning to replace the aluminium grid fins by titanium. The aluminium ones have to be replaced after each landing, because they get so hot during descent that it damages the metal. The titanium ones will be more expensive to make, but that cost can be spread out over multiple uses. Plus they save labor cost from not having to replace them.

    • which are nowhere near as strong as CNC-milled parts.

      Rolls Royce and GE are both looking at 3D printing components for their turbines precisely BECAUSE they are stronger than CNC and die-cast parts. Or you can reduce material for the same strength.

      CNC machining actually puts quite a bit of stress in certain areas of materials, a stress that is incredibly consistent when using direct metal laser sintering processes.

      But I'm sure no one in aerospace has thought of this. Thank god for slashdot's risk analysis.

      The metal "grain" in a 3D-printed part would be to disorganized to have high tensile strength, leading to brittleness.

      Err false.

  • Nothing better than an airline company trying to reduce costs.
  • Taking the concepts of minimal required materials and planned obsolescence to whole new levels with the marvel of 3D printing.

    Engineering: the art of cutting costs by designing to the exact spec required and nothing more.

    • As an engineer in the architecture/building industry, there's a shitload of truth in that. The real cost being that any force applied to your engineered part which you *didn't* predict will result in a failure, as opposed to the old-school version of something solid and "inefficient" but which can carry many unanticipated loads without requiring repair.

  • Not much - windows which, rather than teeny-weeny are very small, plus a pressure in the cabin slightly higher and more humid than before. That's it. The rest of the experience is the same miserable one that it has been for 15 years, with less and less legroom, the same plasticky food, the same you-pay-for-everything-and-then-some, take-it-or-leave attitude from the airlines, and, most importantly, it still takes the same amount of time to cover the classical London - New York route as it over 50 years ago.
  • I think Boeing would borrow a leaf from the Russians. They still manage to produce planes cheaper, though not in big quantities.

    • The cooperation goes both ways. Boeing has a huge engineering center in Moscow, but Boeing also helped United Aircraft Corporation with the Sukhoi Superjet 100 design and actually partakes in its sales and marketing.

    • Russian jets are cheaper because Russian labor is much cheaper. Also, are you comparing comparable models? An A320Neo or B737MAX is a very different animal from a Sukhoi Superjet 100 (regional jet versus larger single aisle).
      • well, to be fair, a Tu-204 is cheaper than anything Boeing or Airbus offers, but I don't think they are manufactured anymore.

  • The main benefit of laser sintering or 3D printing when it comes to these titanium parts is the optimal shapes you can make. Traditional casting and milling processes have many limitations where you need to support/remove the mold pieces, have specific wall thicknesses, or be able to actually mill with real bits. 3D printing, provided the process is roughly as strong and fatigue resistant as the traditional material, allows you to make impossible shapes that are far more optimal for the weight like cardb
  • ... are named after the TV character, Arthur Fonzerelli.

The gent who wakes up and finds himself a success hasn't been asleep.

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