3-D printing aircraft's metal parts could significantly reduce both manufacturing waste and the weight of the airplane, saving fuel and money and decreasing carbon emissions, scientists say.
Researchers the Northwestern University in US used aircraft industry data to complete a case study of the life-cycle environmental effects of using 3-D printing for select metal aircraft parts, a technique already being adopted by the industry.
The team concluded that 3-D printing the lighter and higher performance parts could significantly reduce both manufacturing waste and the weight of the airplane, thus saving fuel and money and decreasing carbon emissions.
Conventional manufacturing methods tend to be inefficient and wasteful. To produce a 1-kilogramme bracket for an airplane, for example, it may require 10 kilogrammes of raw material input into the manufacturing process.
And, from an engineering design perspective, that final bracket may still contain much more metal than is required for the job.
On the other hand, 3-D printing requires far less raw material inputs and can further produce parts that minimise weight through better design.
"We have suboptimal designs because we're limited by conventional manufacturing," Eric Masanet, who led the study, said.
"When you can make something in layer-by-layer fashion, those constraints diminish," said Masanet.
Masanet does not anticipate a change to the crucial parts of the aircraft, such as the wings and engine, any time soon.
But he does see real potential in the replacement of less flight-critical parts, such as brackets, hinges, seat buckles, and furnishings.
According to the study, 3-D printing a bracket, for example, reduced its weight from 1.09 kilogrammes to 0.38 kilogrammes.
"There are enough parts that, when replaced, could reduce the weight of the aircraft by 4 to 7 per cent. And it could be even more as we move forward. This will save a lot of resources and a lot of fuel," Masanet said.
If the 3-D components evaluated in the study are used to their full potential, Masanet predicted it would greatly benefit the environment in more than one way.
First, his team estimated that airplane fuel consumption could be reduced by as much as 6.4 per cent, reducing both fossil fuel dependency and greenhouse gas emissions.
Second, their life-cycle analysis found that manufacturing 3-D printed components uses as little as one-third to one-half of the energy currently used in conventional methods.
Manufacturers would also potentially save thousands of tonnes of aluminium, titanium and nickel that are otherwise scrapped every year, researchers said.
The study was published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.
