Polish 3D printer manufacturer Zortrax is a rising star worldwide, with customers believing in the reliability of their flagship M200 3D printer and the company making partnerships with large businesses, such as Dell. Now, it seems that Zortrax has established its 3D printing as strong enough even for the military, with a new agreement seeing Polish aircraft repair company Wojskowe Zakłady Lotnicze Nr 2 to upgrade fighter jets up to NATO standards.
As one of the largest aviation facilities in Poland, WZL Nr 2 is responsible for repairing and maintaining many of the country’s strike fighters and fighter jets. With the North-Atlantic Treaty requiring the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland to keep their aircraft up to current NATO standards, the firm will be overhauling and modernizing their Soviet-style Su-22 and MiG-29 jets and have decided to implement 3D printing in order to do so.
To speed up the production process for new components and upgrades, WZL Nr 2 will be prototyping their parts on Zortrax’s M200 3D printer, ensuring that they fit the jets before going into serial production in the proper materials. The firm will also be prototyping parts for civil aircraft upgrades and modifcations, including new autopilot and navigation devices. Possibilities for the technology include creating mock-ups of plane cockpits to give depth to 2D blueprints.
An engineer at WZL Nr 2, Albert Szparga, says of the new 3D printers, “A 3D printer offers the opportunity for rapid prototyping – should there be any discrepancies between the geometry delivered by the manufacturer and the actual geometry, this is in fact the fastest way to dispel any doubts. If we used only the conventional methods, even with scanners or programs applied in reverse engineering, the time and cost outlays would still exceed the cost of 3D printing.”
While the M200 has been well received by the industry, Zortrax plans to launch an industrial-grade 3D printer this Fall. The Inventure will have a closed print area, to provide an even printing temperature, as well as the ability to 3D print water soluble support structures for more complex parts. Rafał Tomasiak, CEO of Zortrax, says of the deal and their upcoming printer, “With Inventure we are taking one step further towards the professionalization of 3D printing. The solutions applied in the printer offer the opportunity to print with even greater accuracy and with material that allows for easy processing and ensures high impact resistance. At the same time, the price of the device along with its small size will make it affordable not only to large companies, but also to small workshops or labs. The technology currently used by ‘Wojskowe Zakłady Lotnicze Nr 2’, among others, will become even more available to professionals in every organization, irrespective of size.”
