The Nano Dimension’s DragonFly™ Pro Additive Manufacturing Platform for Electronics, is the one-stop solution for creating high-quality 3D Printedelectronics confidentially.
The system can 3D print using metals and dielectric polymers simultaneously, allowing for the manufacture of non-planar electronics, antennas, RFIDs, multilayer PCBs, Complex Geometry PCBs, and many other components.
Cobra Aero, a successful producer of two-stroke engines for UAV applications approached Renishaw to understand how they could incorporate additive manufacturing into their existing manufacturing portfolio.
Cobra had a vision for the use of metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) in their business, and enlisted additional help from HiETA and nTopology to help drive the development of an innovative engine design.
Leveraging the design opportunities of AM and the expertise of the partners involved, Cobra have devised a pioneering and extremely performant new engine design.
Moreover, Cobra have explored the applications space including production of tooling, complex componentry and highly customized components in their sister motorcycle business, Cobra Moto.
Primary Topics:
• Design for Manufacture
• Aerospace Design
• Complex Structures for Heat Exchange
• Product Innovation and Testing
Speaker:
Kevin Brigden
Additive Applications Engineer, Renishaw
Kevin has a master's degree in engineering with honors in motorsports engineering from the University of Central Lancashire, England. A member of a team of technical specialists, he brings a skill-set centered in computer-aided engineering (CAE) including computer-aided design (CAD), finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). During Kevin's time with Renishaw, he has led and consulted on numerous design projects in collaboration with partners and customers from aerospace, automotive, space and defense and medical engineering. Kevin is at the forefront of the design for additive manufacture (DfAM) movement, with many of his characteristic and innovative designs widely recognized and imitated.
Additive Manufacturing or 3D Printing has a great potential to develop significant advances in materials, printers’ technology, and processes.
Thus, the layer by layer manufacturing has existed for three decades and new developments recently appeared in smart materials.
Laboratories discovered ways to design and manufacture advanced structured materials and responsive materials used in multi-functional and high-performance products.
The current research and development efforts will have an impact on the traditional design and manufacturing process. 4D Printing announces a major modification in the product design and manufacturing process from static structures to dynamic structures like Shape Memory Material (SMM) with integrated functionalities.
This article presents a review of smart materials based on a classification of advanced structured materials and responsive materials before beginning a description of current applications. The use of multi-materials and the study of predictive models to simulate the responsive materials behaviour accelerate the smart materials development.
Wind tunnel testing is a reliable means for aircraft design. The wind tunnel models are the objects used in the tests. The accuracy and economy of the model design and fabrication have an important impact on the quality and cycle of aircraft development. Additive Manufacturing (AM, or Rapid Prototyping, 3D printing) can directly fabricate 3D parts through accumulating raw materials, and is widely regarded as a revolutionary advancement in manufacturing technology.
In the very early development period, AM was soon introduced and was studied by many groups worldwide. Firstly, the introduction of AM is an advancement for the fabrication of models, which can greatly improve the fabrication economy of current models, such as reducing the number of parts, and shortening the processing cycle etc. Secondly, the introduction of AM can also improve the design of models, which is helpful to develop new types of models and even new test methods. Thirdly, AM has blurred the boundaries between real aircraft and experimental models, and promoted the development of new concept aircraft.
The review first introduces the design requirements of the wind tunnel test models and recalls the AM application history for models. Next, detailed technologies concerning the design procedure and fabrication processing of the AM-based models are presented. Finally, the application of AM-based model in the development of current air vehicles and new-concept vehicles is introduced. The review provides an overview of techniques of AM in wind tunnel test models, and provide typical examples for reference to designers and researchers in the aerospace industry.
Historically, changes in military technologies have often occurred in clusters, reflecting major advances in the sciences, manufacturing processes, the organization of economic activities, and even political structures. Nowadays, defense leaders are seeking to secure their military-technological superiority by investing in new areas of Industry 4.0 such as Additive Manufacturing, Advanced Materials, Big Data Analytics, Etc.
Dramatic improvements in robotics, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing), and nanoenergetics are dramatically changing the character of conflict in all domains.
In the last few years, additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, has gone from an interesting hobby to an industry producing a wide range of products from an ever-growing list of materials: The global explosion of additive manufacturing means it is virtually impossible to provide an up-to-date list of materials that can be printed, but the top-4-most-wanted list for the military industry would include metals, thermoplastics, composites and ceramics.
In addition to a wide range of materials, additive manufacturing has gone from being able to make only a few prototypes to being able to produce parts in large or very large formats. At the same time, additive manufacturingis dramatically increasing the complexity of objects it can produce, while simultaneously improving speed and precision.
Additive Manufacturing (AM, or 3D printing) is an emerging manufacturing technology with far-reaching implications: AM is increasingly used to produce functional parts, including components for safety-critical systems, but its unique capabilities and dependence on computerization raise a concern that an AMgenerated part could be sabotaged by a cyber-physical attack.
In this paper, it is demonstrated the validity of this concern by presenting a novel attack: reducing the fatigue life of a 3D-printed quadcopter propeller, causing its mid-flight failure, ultimately leading to the quadcopter’s fall and destruction.
The convergence of dramatic improvements in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, materials, additive manufacturing and nanoenergetics is dramatically changing the character of conflict in all domains.
This convergence is creating a massive increase in capabilities available to increasingly smaller political entities—extending even to the individual. This new diffusion of power has major implications for the conduct of warfare, not the least of which are the major hazards or opportunities that it presents to medium and even small powers.
Integration of sensors into various kinds of products and machines provides access to in-depth usage information as basis for product optimization.
Presently, this large potential for more user-friendly and efficient products is not being realized because:
(a) sensor integration and thus usage information is not available on a large scale
and
(b) product optimization requires considerable efforts in terms of manpower and adaptation of production equipment.
However, with the advent of cloud-based services and highly flexible Additive Manufacturing techniques, these obstacles are currently crumbling away at rapid pace.
The present study explores the state of the art in gathering and evaluating product usage and life cycle data, Additive Manufacturing and sensor integration, automated design and cloud-based services in manufacturing.
By joining and extrapolating development trends in these areas, it delimits the foundations of a manufacturing concept that will allow continuous and economically viable product optimization on a general, user group or individual user level.
This projection is checked against three different application scenarios, each of which stresses different aspects of the underlying holistic concept. The following discussion identifies critical issues and research needs by adopting the relevant stakeholder perspectives.
Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies enable the fabrication of parts and devices that are geometrically complex, have graded material compositions, and can be customised.
To take advantage of these capabilities, it is important to guide engineering designers through the various issues that are unique to AM. We explore the range of principles that are relevant to Design For Additive Manufacturing (DFAM) in this paper.
These include ideas about generating designs that cannot be fabricated using conventional methods to understanding the realities of existing machines and materials to micro-scale issues related to material microstructures and resulting process variations.
Comments about standardisation efforts in the ASTM and ISO organisations are also included.
Additive Manufacturing technologies enable the fabrication of parts and devices that are geometrically complex, have graded material compositions, and can be customized.
To take advantage of these capabilities, it is important to assist designers in exploring unexplored regions of design spaces. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges in design for additive manufacturing.
A new computer-aided Design For Additive Manufacturing (DFAM) method is presented that is based on the process-structure-property-behavior model common in the materials design community.
Examples of cellular materials design and manufacturing are used to illustrate the DFAM method.
Design For Manufacturing (DFM) has typically meant that designers should tailor their designs to eliminate manufacturing difficulties and minimize manufacturing, assembly, and logistics costs.
However, the capabilities of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies provide an opportunity to rethink DFM to take advantage of the unique capabilities of these technologies:
1) Shape complexity: It is possible to build virtually any shape.
2) Hierarchical complexity: Hierarchical multiscale structures can be designed and fabricated from the microstructure through geometric mesostructure (sizes in the millimeter range) to the part-scale macrostructure
3) Material complexity: Material can be processed one point, or one layer, at a time.
4) Functional complexity: Fully functional assemblies and mechanisms can be fabricated directly using AM processes.
These unique capabilities enable new opportunities for customization, very significant improvements in product performance, multifunctionality, and lower overall manufacturing costs.
In the case of UAVs, AMtechnology enables low-volume manufacturing, easy integration of design changes and, at least as importantly, piece part reductions to greatly simplify product assembly.
Defense companies are using 3D Printing more often today to build parts for weapons: Aerojet Rocketdyne is using the technology to build rocket engines, Huntington Ingalls is using it to build warships and Boeing is 3D printing parts for its commercial, defense, and space products.
"Someday, the military will 3D-print missiles as needed" says Will Roper, the U.S. Air Force’s acquisition chief. In the shorter term, he just wants to use Additive Manufacturing Technology to get broken planes back in the air. But there is a legal, not technical, roadblock: Today’s 3D-printers could make short work of part deliveries, but some of those parts’ original manufacturers control the intellectual property — and so far, the service lacks clear policy for dealing with that.
This paper presents industrial applications of the Rapid Prototyping (RP) / Rapid Manufacturing (RM) techniques, developed at the Industrial Innovative Technologies Laboratory (Manufacturing Engineering Department from Transilvania University of Braşov) within the PLADETINO (Platform for Innovative Technological Development) interdisciplinary platform.
The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that Additive Manufacturing Technologies (AMT) can be effectively applied for fabricating test models used in aerodynamic experimental investigations. One of the most popular AMT used worldwide is 3D printing(3DP). 3D printing technologies can be divided in the following groups: inkjet printing, fused deposition modelling and polyjet. The present work is focused on applications of polyjet technology for manufacturing wind tunnel test models.
Integration of sensors into various kinds of products and machines provides access to in-depth usage information as basis for product optimization.
Presently, this large potential for more user-friendly and efficient products is not being realized because (a) sensor integration and thus usage information is not available on a large scale and (b) product optimization requires considerable efforts in terms of manpower and adaptation of production equipment.
However, with the advent of cloud-based services and highly flexible Additive Manufacturing techniques, these obstacles are currently crumbling away at rapid pace. The present study explores the state of the art in gathering and evaluating product usage and life cycle data, additive manufacturing and sensor integration, automated design and cloud-based services in manufacturing.
By joining and extrapolating development trends in these areas, it delimits the foundations of a manufacturing concept that will allow continuous and economically viable product optimization on a general, user group or individual user level. This projection is checked against three different application scenarios, each of which stresses different aspects of the underlying holistic concept.
UAVs are gaining popularity due to their application in military, private and public sector, especially being attractive for fields where human operator is not required.
Light-weight UAVs are more desirable as they have better performance in terms of shorter take-off range and longer flight endurance. However, light weight structures with complex inner features are hard to fabricate using conventional manufacturing methods.
The ability to print complex inner structures directly without the need of a mould gives Additive Manufacturing (AM) an edge over conventional manufacturing. Recent development in composite and multi-material printing opens up new possibilities of printing lightweight structures and novel platforms like flapping wings with ease.
This paper explores the impact of Additive Manufacturing on aerodynamics, structures and materials used for UAVs. The review will discuss state-of-the-art AM technologies for UAVs through innovations in materials and structures and their advantages and limitations. The role of Additive Manufacturing to improve the performance of UAVs through smart material actuators and multi-functional structures will also be discussed.
Additive Manufacturing or 3D Printing materials originally developed for the motorsports industry by CRP Technology in Modena, Italy, and Mooresville, North Carolina, are being used to manufacture Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), commonly called drones.
Engineers at CRP Technology and Hexadrone, crafted a modular UAS using Laser Sintering technology and Windform composite materials. CRP Technology, CRP Group’s specialized company in advanced 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing solutions, developed the Windform family of high-performance composite materials.
Engineers implemented a rugged, waterproof design to construct Hexadrone’s first fully modular, easy-to-use UAS made for extreme weather conditions and industrial and multipurpose applications. Rapidly swappable arms and three quick release attachments make the Tundra-M extremely flexible to meet the needs of any profession, while making operational conditions easier to maintain, officials say.
Hexadrone officials asked CRP to devise the functional prototype of the Tundra-M, Hexadrone’s very first mass-produced drone: “We have engineered our drone by means of a cautious, multifaceted, and collaborative based approach with the involvement of broad-based stakeholders,”Hexadrone CEO Alexandre Labesse says. “In the course of two years of consulting, research, and development, we have gathered all the advice and customers’ testimonials useful to its design and which finally helped us in the process of devising an ideal UAV solution.”
Suitable for different flight scenarios and professional uses, the multifunctional Tundra-M boasts four quick-connect arms and three accessory connections. The body and other main parts are made of composite polyamide-based material. Carbon-filled Windform SP and Windform XT 2.0 materials are shaped into pieces using the Selective Laser Sintering 3D Printing Technology. The four arms supporting the body frame of the Tundra were 3D printed using Windform XT 2.0 composite material. The rest of the components were developed with the Windform SP composite material.
Understanding the limitations with traditional manufacturing technologies, the companies identified the opportunity to develop a unique UAS based on the use of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies. Additive Manufacturing technologies in UAS applications has presented both opportunity and challenges to engineers in the field. The ability to produce parts and components using AM technologies hold promise in both metals and plastics, whereas traditional subtractive manufacturing technologies can be restrictive in design development and material selection.
According to Jeff Engel, COO of Reaction Systems Inc., "in hypersonic flight the combustor temperature gets so high that materials can’t survive in that environment; you have to continually cool the combustor sections."
Reaction Systems is developing a fuel system to absorb that heat load from the combustor specifically, so that the final speed of the vehicle is faster. But transferring the heat to the working fluid, while providing a maximum surface area for catalysis inside the heat exchanger, is essentially impossible to achieve with conventional heat exchanger fabrication technologies.
Additive Manufacturing from Faustson Tool Corporation is enabling the heat exchange technology: Faustson’s Concept LaserM2cusingMultilaser can build with a variety of high-performance alloys, including cobalt-chromium grades, Ti6Al4V, pure titanium and the material for Reaction Systems’ heat exchanger, Inconel 718.
Applications are invited for a fully funded PhD studentship (4 years) within the EPSRCCentre for Doctoral Training inAdditive Manufacturing in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/additivemanufacturing/.
Materials with intrinsic difference of electrical properties are highly desirable for RFmetamaterials. Additively manufacture metamaterials using materials with dissimilar electrical properties will widen the spectrum of controlling the RF response of the printed structures and increase the application prospect to include various frequencies ranging from MHz to THz.
The successful PhD student will work alongside a team of other PhD students and post-doctoral researchers involved in related projects. This project is supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Additive Manufacturing at the University of Nottingham.
Researchers have now demonstrated and exposed in the paper "Additive Manufacturing of an iron-based bulk metallic glass larger than the critical casting thickness," the ability to create amorphous metal, or metallic glass, alloys using 3DPrinting technology, opening the door to a variety of applications in the UAV industry, such as more efficient electric motors, better wear-resistant materials, higher strength materials, and lighter weight structures. The paper is published in the journal Applied Materials Today. The paper was co-authored by Harvey West, Timothy Horn and Christopher Rock of NC State; Lena Thorsson, Mattias Unosson and Peter Skoglund of Sindre Metals; and Evelina Vogli of Liquidmetal Coatings. The work was done with support from the National Science Foundation under grant number 1549770.
The technique works by applying a laser to a layer of metal powder, melting the powder into a solid layer that is only 20 microns thick. The "build platform" then descends 20 microns, more powder is spread onto the surface, and the process repeats itself. Because the alloy is formed a little at a time, it cools quickly - retaining its amorphous qualities. However, the end result is a solid, metallic glass object - not an object made of laminated, discrete layers of the alloy.
