Scientist Fly World’s First “3D Printed” Airplane – An Unmanned Spy Plane
Posted by Alexander Higgins - July 30, 2011 at 4:41 am - Permalink - Source via Alexander Higgins Blog
Loading ...Engineers at the University of Southampton have developed an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) whose entire structure has been printed, potentially changing the economics of aircraft design.
Engineers at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom have been able to manufacture and complete a test flight of the world’s first airplane which was assembled from components that were entirely printed.
The project involved the manufacturing of a spy drone called SULSA (Southampton University Laser Sintered Aircraft) using a 3D printing process known as laser sintering which utilizes high-powered lasers to fuse together particles into a desired shape.
During the process a computer reads a 3-D description file to create layer upon layer of the material until the final product is completed.
The parts were are also all designed to ‘snap fit’ together which eliminated the need to use any fasteners on the plane.
The new technology has the potential to revolutionize the economics of air craft design as traditional methods require months to develop while the SULSA project took only weeks.
The process also eliminates the cost of retooling manufacturing equipment and the final assembly only took a few minutes after all of the parts were printed according to a report on ZDNET.
The final result was the world’s first printed airplane which is electric-powered with 6.5 ft wingspan, a miniature autopilot system and capable of traveling at speeds of nearly 100 miles per hour.
The project was led by Professors Andy Keane and Jim Scanlan from the University’s Computational Engineering and Design Research group, according to a report on the University’s website, who say their drone runs almost completely silent when running in cruise mode.
In the report Professor Scanlon said: “The flexibility of the laser sintering process allows the design team to re-visit historical techniques and ideas that would have been prohibitively expensive using conventional manufacturing. One of these ideas involves the use of a Geodetic structure. This type of structure was initially developed by Barnes Wallis and famously used on the Vickers Wellington bomber which first flew in 1936. This form of structure is very stiff and lightweight, but very complex. If it was manufactured conventionally it would require a large number of individually tailored parts that would have to be bonded or fastened at great expense.”
Professor Keane added: “Another design benefit that laser sintering provides is the use of an elliptical wing planform. Aerodynamicists have, for decades, known that elliptical wings offer drag benefits. The Spitfire wing was recognized as an extremely efficient design but it was notoriously difficult and expensive to manufacture. Again laser sintering removes the manufacturing constraint associated with shape complexity and in the SULSA aircraft there is no cost penalty in using an elliptical shape.” sintering removes the manufacturing constraint associated with shape complexity and in the SULSA aircraft there is no cost penalty in using an elliptical shape.”
The University will be launching a groundbreaking course beginning in September of 2010 to enable students to earn a Master’s Degree in unmanned autonomous vehicle (UAV) design which will cover the laser sintering technology.
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[...] Story: http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/07/30/scientist-fly-worlds-printed-airp…Engineers at the University of Southampton have developed an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) whose entire [...]
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[...] whose entire structure has been printed, potentially changing the economics of aircraft design. WATCH — World First: 3D Printing – First Flight of Fully Printed Aeroplane (UAV/drone by Laser S…Engineers at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom have been able to manufacture and [...]
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