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Comment by exacube | Hacker News Reader

examples / links?

Over 1,000 parts of the A350XWB are 3d printed using a specific resin (called ULTEM 9085) with interesting properties for the purpose of building an airliner: it's light, strong, and FST (flame, smoke, and toxicity) compliant. [1]

Replying to another post, it might not be very high volume, but it certainly isn't prototyping: it's in production in a very heavily regulated sector. More impressive to me than mass producing for example 10,000,000 key holders a month.

[1] http://3dprint.com/63169/airbus-a350-xwb-3d-print/

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-07/12/3d-printed-pl... "Airbus plans to have 3D printed components in the cabins of its A380s by the end of 2012. Its Eurofighter Typhoon military jet already has some internal 3D printed components."

Of course, those might be comparatively boring parts, like radio covers and plastic ducting. You won't be able to 3D print a working jet fighter in your garage for at least 5 years, maybe more :)

Those are also low-value, low-volume parts. 3D printing works for minor components when you are only building a couple of hundred planes a year, but the 3D parts themselves have almost no value whatsoever compared to the final product.

"The Boeing company has been utilizing SLS for flight hardware in regular production since 2002, for both military and commercial programs"

http://www.naefrontiers.org/File.aspx?id=31590

GE Aviation has already pushed selective laser sintering – a form of 3D printing – further than anyone else, announcing on 15 July that a factory in Alabama will be the first to mass-produce jet engine parts using an additive manufacturing process.

That factory will build fuel nozzles for the CFM Leap-1, which combines a core made by GE and a low-pressure section from Snecma. GE is now evaluating a different 3D printing process to build LPT blades for the GE9X – the engine selected to power the Boeing 777X, and the engine maker’s most complex propulsion system yet.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/analysis-ge-ponder...

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