Aerospace & Defense
Aerospace customers leverage 3D Systems industry-leading production solutions to deliver unprecedented productivity in manufacturing supply and value chains
Aerospace customers leverage 3D Systems industry-leading production solutions to deliver unprecedented productivity in manufacturing supply and value chains
Advanced flight platforms are placing pressure on aerospace companies to adopt rapid manufacturing technologies that accelerate the supply chain and encourage innovation at every level, including product development, inspection and MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul). At the same time, there’s a growing need to lower fuel costs and efficiently replace legacy parts for aging fleets.
Aerospace and defense customers leverage 3D Systems’ industry-leading solutions and expertise to deliver unprecedented manufacturing productivity improvements: increased speed and reliability of quality assurance and validation processes; lowered fuel costs through lightweighting and parts consolidation; increased manufacturing productivity through innovative 3D printed casting patterns, 3D data recovery, injection-mold design, and direct metal printing of airworthy parts.
Low-cost robotic space exploration requires throwing away the book on many traditional processes, starting with design and manufacturing.
Patented 3D Systems technologies deliver lighter-weight parts, quicker design iterations, and cost savings from consolidating assemblies into one casted part.
Parts and assemblies for the Rover, some machined from solid titanium, contain complex angles and undercut walls, some with thicknesses as small as 1mm (0.040″).
The successful Mars Rover mission underlines Next Intent’s use of GibbsCAM software to keep material as thin as possible without affecting the structural integrity of parts.
Each bracket mounted on the antenna required a unique topologically optimized design for lower weight without sacrificing strength.
Direct-metal-printed brackets are 25-percent lighter, have a better stiffness-to-weight ratio, and can be manufactured in half the time it would take with a traditional process.
Although some blueprints of the original F-1 engine design exist, the basic drawings that were available revealed a disconnect between the original design and as-built results.
An accurate 3D model of the F-1 engine can now be used for analysis, flow path definition, clearances, and re-creation and manufacturing of the original parts using new materials.
The day that no one thought would ever come, the...
In the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, ACT 3D...