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Printer Businesses Space Technology

Lockheed Martin Creates Its Largest 3D-Printed Space Part To Date (engadget.com) 80

Posted by BeauHD from the bigger-and-better dept.
Lockheed Martin has finished quality control tests for its largest 3D-printed space part to date: an enormous titanium dome meant to serve as caps for satellite fuel tanks. The component measures four feet in diameter. Engadget reports: Its previous largest qualified space part is an electronics enclosure that's around the size of a toaster. This dome is large enough to seal fuel tanks bigger than humans and, according to Lockheed Martin, big enough to hold 74.4 gallons of coffee or 530 donuts. Glazed, of course.

Titanium is an ideal material for the industry, because it's lightweight and can withstand the harsh conditions of space travel. However, manufacturers end up wasting 80 percent of the material using traditional manufacturing techniques -- plus, each component could take years to build. Rick Ambrose, the company's executive VP, said they were able to cut down the total delivery timeline for a titanium fuel tank dome from two years to an incredibly impressive three months. "Our largest 3D-printed parts to date show we're committed to a future where we produce satellites twice as fast and at half the cost."
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Lockheed Martin Creates Its Largest 3D-Printed Space Part To Date More

Lockheed Martin Creates Its Largest 3D-Printed Space Part To Date

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  • Still backwardian (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What's all this in metric? And don't convert; the original design is bound to be in metric and I don't need double conversions, thanks.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's in metric because the modern world works in metric.

    • Re:Still backwardian (Score:5, Interesting)

      by careysub ( 976506 ) on Monday July 16, 2018 @10:18AM (#56956950)

      This video [vimeo.com] is what you should look at to find out about the actual size of the object and you can see how it was made. The size is 1.16 meters (46.7 inches, not the 46 given in the press release, they should have rounded up to 47 if they wanted two use two digits of precision).

      It was made by laying down titanium on a rotating platform and fusing it in place. Although you can see it being done in the video how the titanium is applied and what they are using to fuse it is not explained. I'm guessing titanium ribbon and a helium atmosphere arc.

      The lead time they quote for forgings is presumably the time to make the tooling. Additive "printing" processes are good for low production items so that expensive tooling isn't necessary.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron-beam_additive_manufacturing
        Electron beam additive manufacturing.

        Is what this was made in a vacuum with an electron beam melting the metal together. Metals fuse together VERY well in a vacuum where oxygenation is no longer an issue.

    • Yeah, obviously this was a press release geared for the idiot masses - they give volume in cups of coffee, donuts, and hard-shelled candy, but even gallons are only mentioned as parenthetical aside.

  • C'mon, what's with the weird units? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday July 16, 2018 @02:28AM (#56955044)

    Gallons wasn't counter-intuitive enough, so we're now measuring space in donuts?

    Glazed, of course.

    Lockheed, are you an engineering factory or a chocolate factory? Do you have skunkworks or Oompa Loompa?

    • Those are just units for the negative space; they're not building the part they counted using donuts. They're just hungry.

      • Those are just units for the negative space; they're not building the part they counted using donuts. They're just hungry.

        The coffee and M&M ("hard-shell candies (you know which ones we mean)") examples support this theory.

        But how to explain the ping ping balls (6,225)?

        • Ping pong balls are a traditional object of make-work; in economics, everybody understands that if you have high unemployment and you pay workers to dig ditches, fill them with ping-pong balls, and then dig them back up, you stimulate the economy.

          So in examples like this, it is very much like the food examples; they're just thinking about their paycheck and implying that you're not supposed to take their presentation seriously as if it was actual work, because it wasn't; it was make-work.

    • Gallons wasn't counter-intuitive enough, so we're now measuring space in donuts?

      Glazed, of course.

      74.4 gallons of coffee or 530 donuts is breakfast for people the size of Wales.

      Lockheed, are you an engineering factory or a chocolate factory? Do you have skunkworks or Oompa Loompa?

      Stanley Kubrick just recently revealed in a postmortem interview that he personally met Oompa Loompas at Area 51 while he was there filming the Moon Landings and O.J. Simpson's Murder on Mars.

      A baby Oompa Loompa starred at the end of "2001" . . .

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ubi_NL ( 313657 )

      It did make me wonder how many libraries of congress would fit in it

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The donut is one of those less common dry imperial units like hogshead or rods. There are 42 donuts to the standard bushel.

    • Do you have skunkworks or Oompa Loompa?

      Please say Oopa Loompa...

      Please say Oopa Loompa...

      Please say Oopa Loompa...

    • Examples given here are just for comparison and show its size nothing related to engineering and all, as it is built from titanium using 3D technology.

      • And they fail miserably at offering any kind of "feel" of how big it is. Do you know what 74 gallons look like? Whether it's much? Can you, off the top of your head, tell me whether it's more than a bathtub? And how far that tub has to be filled?

        Saying that it's a cone of X diameter and Y height would offer a much more tangible size. Even if X and Y were given in the funny imperial units.

        • Do you know what 74 gallons look like?

          Depends. Are we talking 74 gallons of tea, or 74 gallons of coffee ?

        • You should have a 0.25 cubic meters of a bathtub. Just go and have it, it will easily pour approximately 250 to 230 liters of liquid which is nearly 74 gallons. L*B*H = 1*0.5*0.5 m3
    • They're just trying to be cute.

      I agree though. The illustrations are pointless. I have no idea what 530 donuts looks like, or 310,000 M&Ms. Or for that matter 74.4 gallons. On the other hand, they have a damn picture that indicates the size! And for those of us who have a general idea of imperial, a 4ft radius hemisphere is also reasonably descriptive.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Hawks ( 102993 )

        It may be easier to image the volume in more reasonable standard units. 74.4G ~= 538 Grapefruit, or 164.5 Bulgarian Funbags. Further comparisons are left as an exercise for the reader.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Whibla ( 210729 )

      Gallons wasn't counter-intuitive enough...

      They were talking, specifically, about gallons of coffee.

      I'm still trying to work out how many gallons of Brawndo this equates to...

      • It doesn't matter how many gallons of Brawndo this equates to since the last step is converting that value in electrolytes.

        • It doesn't matter how many gallons of Brawndo this equates to since the last step is converting that value in electrolytes.

          Brawndo has electrolytes....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Its previous largest qualified space part is an electronics enclosure that's around the size of a toaster.

      Two or four slice?

      • Its previous largest qualified space part is an electronics enclosure that's around the size of a toaster.

        Two or four slice?

        Neither. [pinterest.co.uk]

    • This came from Engadget presumably, and not straight from Lockheed-Martin.

  • "manufacturers end up wasting 80 percent" (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What do they mean by wasting? Surely they can melt off-cuts down and reuse it?

    • Re:"manufacturers end up wasting 80 percent" (Score:5, Informative)

      by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Monday July 16, 2018 @04:22AM (#56955270)

      Titanium chips from machining are contaminated with coolants and lubricants, as well as foreign materials. Recycling these chips is more expensive than making new titanium.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Whibla ( 210729 )

        While this sounds almost sensible it also kinda sounds like complete hogwash.

        It's cheaper to 'make' titanium from scratch than it is to start from a highly concentrated source of titanium. Really?

        Any chance you could link to or list reputable sources for your comment?

        I will take a browse myself, after lunch, if only because I have no idea how one would go about 3D printing something made of titanium, but a good starting point would be appreciated.

        Cheers.

        • Recyling titanium (Score:4, Informative)

          by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday July 16, 2018 @07:53AM (#56955964)

          While this sounds almost sensible it also kinda sounds like complete hogwash.

          Definitely not hogwash [rwth-aachen.de]. There are issues of alloy contamination from the cutting tools, oxygen contamination, carbon contamination, and some others. Not necessarily insurmountable problems but not trivial ones either.

        • Highly concentrated titanium is extremely cheap. It is titanium dioxide that makes "white paint" white. It costs about $100 per ton. World production is in the millions of tons annually. Even high purity oxide is cheap.

          The cost of raw titanium is entirely in the processing required to reduce it to metal. The most efficient process currently is the recent FFC Cambridge process that uses electrochemical reduction of the oxide in molten calcium chloride.

        • My guess would be that the offcuts are sold as scrap. Probably for somewhat less than it originally cost because the scrap merchant has to deal with cleanup and purifying. Would still count as a net loss for Lockheed Martin compared with more efficient manufacturing processes.

          Like I say, this is just a guess, but it would make sense.

          • They are sold as scrap - specifically as scrap to make ferrotitanium which is added to steel to scavenge sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen. The titanium is being used simply as a chemical reagent to purify the steel.

  • Lockheed and their fuel tanks... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DanDD ( 1857066 ) on Monday July 16, 2018 @02:36AM (#56955062)

    Here we go again [thehighfrontier.blog]

  • Those are some pretty big damn donuts (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    530 donuts / 74.4 gallons is about 7 donuts / gallon

  • Well done, Lockheed-Martin!

    Ferret

  • >However, manufacturers end up wasting 80 percent of the material using traditional manufacturing techniques

    I can't believe they were actually milling a part that big

  • At first I thought this said:

    Lockheed Martin Creates Its Largest 3D-Printed Space Port To Date

    Now that would be something!

  • an enormous titanium dome meant to serve as caps for satellite fuel tanks. The component measures four feet in diameter.

    4 feet is enormous? To quote Inigo Montoya:

    "You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"

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