3D printing promises to revolutionize defense, aerospace industries.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin

3D Printing Promises to Revolutionize Defense, Aerospace Industries

BY YASMIN TADJDEH

(*) New manufacturing processes, such as 3D printing, have gained worldwide attention for creating everything from entire houses to guns. While used for many novel purposes, the defense and aerospace industry is eyeing it as a way to cut costs and improve efficiency.

Three-D printing shakes up the traditional process of manufacturing-which takes raw' materials and subtracts from it by whittling or drilling-by adding layers of a substance, often a polymer ormetal, to create an object. The method, which is also known as additive manufacturing, only requires a user to download a blueprint to the printer. Because the process uses fewer materials, it cansave companies money as well

as allow them to create parts on the fly, according to industry technologists.

As printers become smaller and less expensive, the defense and aerospace industry stand to glean major cost savings from the technology. Using more advanced printers and metal-based substances,companies are looking to manufacture hard-to-make items, such as brackets and tools for multi-million dollar programs ranging from satellites to jet fighters, according to experts interviewed.

Printers can now make advanced parts for aircraft engines, said Hugh Evans, vice president of corporate development and ventures for 3D Systems, a Rock Hill, S.C.-based additive manufacturing company.

The aerospace industry is adopting additive manufacturing "at a very fast rate because you can 3D print aircraft engine parts and take weight out," Evans said at a Council on Foreign Relations panel on the topic in Washington, D.C.

General Electric and Rolls-Royce recently announced they will begin using 3D printing to manufacture certain engine components.

General Electric has been funneling millions of dollars into 3D printing technology for years,said Steve Rengers, the lead of General Electric Aviation's research and development group.

In 2012, the company acquired Morris Technologies and its sister company Rapid Quality Manufac-turing in Cincinnati, Ohio. Both companies specialized in additive manufacturing.

Since then, General Electric has been working to incorporate 3D printing into its products, Rengers told National Defense. It turned the Cincinnati facilities into its Additive Development Center, where engineers test out applications for the technology, he said.

"We are the research arm of GE as far as additive goes," said Rengers.

Additive manufacturing will be a component of General Electric's forthcoming LEAP engine. The engine-which is being built by CFM International, a joint venture between General Electric and Snecma, a French aerospace company - will include 19 3D-printed fuel nozzles each, Rengers said.

To make the fuel nozzle without...