Titanium has been the hottest material in metal 3D printing for aerospace and not without reason. It has a high strength to weight ratio, great durability, and its powder form is ideally suited for 3D printing. As the quality of the powder improves and its prices fall in the next few years, one could expect to see a huge increase in printed titanium parts.
A handful of countries have already taken lengthy strides towards this outcome, with the aerospace sector in the US leading the way. And, now, it seems like Israel is taking its turn to adopt 3D printing in its aerospace industry. The nation’s latest initiative in this regard aims to develop its first airplane parts using printed titanium by the end of 2015. Funded by the Office of the Chief Scientist and flagged off by Avi Hasson, Chief Scientist at the Israel Ministry of Economy, the initiative will be driven by a consortium of Israeli companies and research institutes.
Called ‘Atid’, the consortium includes companies like Cyclone (a subsidiary of Elbit Systems), Israel Aerospace Industry, Israeli Military Industries, Orbit, Algat, CAS, Admar along with scientists and researchers from the University of Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion University, the Technion, the Metallurgical Institute and Afeka College, to name a few.
Speaking about the Israeli initiative to TheMarker newspaper, Avi Hasson remarked, “3D printing is making its first strides into the manufacturing process. This is a fascinating field and it is possible that these developments will significantly contribute to the nature of manufacturing processes and products in the future. It is important for Israel to enter the field of 3D printing and it is particularly challenging to begin with materials that need to uphold quality measures and strict strength requirements, as is the case in the aerospace industry.”
Having received the go-ahead for its mission to develop 3D printed titanium parts for aerospace, the consortium will commence operations in the latter half of 2015, but not before getting their plans for the first year, as well as the next three years, approved by the generic research and technological development committee at the Israeli Ministry of Economy. Atid will aim to utilize only existing 3D printers for the manufacture and production of aerospace parts with a focus solely on those geometrically complex parts that can only be developed using this technology.
Over the years varying standards have been allowed by some aerospace manufacturers in order to cut their cost. Exact and superior parts whenever needed would help eliminate games of business philosophy over good engineering-controlled hardware.