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A batch of 3D-printed Ti parts |
He mentioned several times that the real key to getting value out of additive manufacturing was to design with the process in mind. It would be very rare that it would make economic sense to take a part that is traditionally fabricated and just print it. What makes much more sense is to redesign the part so that it is lighter weight, higher performing, or has reduced parts count but would be unproduceable with any other method, and print that. An example he gave was of the reduction in parts count from 20 to 1 for the LEAP Engine fuel nozzle.
Also, for prototype parts that support testing where fatigue life is not so critical 3D printed high pressure turbine blades can save 6 months of lead time and 15% in cost. These printed blades will not have the life of a single-crystal turbine blade, but they only really need to last long enough for the engineers to collect the performance data that feeds back in to the next design iteration.
Another topic he hit on was the "long and expensive path" to full characterization of the material (Cobalt-Chrome) they are using in their fuel nozzle application. This is an area that requires work in good design of experiments techniques to optimize how many tests are needed to reach a given level of confidence. One way to tackle this problem is by finding initial application areas that are more tolerant of risk such as prototype hardware, wind tunnel models, or ancillary hardware like brackets.
As far as future directions for additive manufacturing, he mentioned in passing that there was plenty of misinformation in the press that lead people to have unrealistic expectations about 3D printers in every home producing replacements for consumer goods. He did say that being able to produce repair parts in remote environments was a possible future application, which sounds a lot like the Army program to take mobile fab labs into the field.

In line with the point Greg Morris made about designing for the process, many of the existing topology optimization methods are ideal design tools to really take full advantage of the capabilities that additive processes bring. Expanding these methods to include more physics beyond elastic compliance, such as heat transfer and thermal growth, is an important research area.
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