Light sport aircraft 3d printing

[LambdaFF]

Thanks for your reply!
It's not practical because of money reasons? What would you recommend instead? Assembly from smaller pieces?

Well, 3D printing in one go would mean supports here and there : lots of waste.

3D printing is not fast compared to other production means, it's just fast for the 1st item as compared to a full industrialisation.

Also, the profile would be weak parallel to the main printing plane : an assembly would be stronger because the components could have mixed directions.

What's important in an aircraft is early failure detection : you can inspect metal assemblies for cracks, you can do tapping composite components for delamination detection. The whole point is : the detection and the failure are HOURS or DAYS apart, leaving you ample margin for safe operations. For a plastic 3D printed part you'd need to prove that the layer delamination can be contained for hours after being detectable. Good luck with that if it's all printed in one go.

If it's printed in one go, you can't just swap a subcomponent for a repair : not practical.

Shall I go on ?

The most practical use of 3D printing in this case would be to use it to manufacture molds for composites. I've seen some machined from LAB : comparatively quite expensive and not much reusable.

[Balazs91]

Thank you LambdaFF, it helped me a lot! I'll start to learn more about those composite printers.
My original thought was about a one-piece fuselage can be the strongest and lightest because you don't have to assemble the parts but now I can see the disadvantages, especially to swap a subcomponent. So the smaller is the better.

[LambdaFF]

Thank you LambdaFF, it helped me a lot! I'll start to learn more about those composite printers.

Hey, I think there is a misunderstanding. While there IS a printer doing carbon fibers (think MARK ONE), I was talking about making a mold in plastic then putting a release agent (silicon ? PTFE ?) and putting resin and carbon fiber / glass fiber on it to make the part. The (huge) advantage is that for each ply of fabric you manually put in the mold, you can choose the fiber direction thus fully optimizing strength in the desired directions.
Once the resin is cured the release agent will help you separate the part from the mold.
You can then reuse the mold to make more identical parts.

[Sebastian Finke]

Hey, I think there is a misunderstanding. While there IS a printer doing carbon fibers (think MARK ONE), I was talking about making a mold in plastic then putting a release agent (silicon ? PTFE ?) and putting resin and carbon fiber / glass fiber on it to make the part. The (huge) advantage is that for each ply of fabric you manually put in the mold, you can choose the fiber direction thus fully optimizing strength in the desired directions.
Once the resin is cured the release agent will help you separate the part from the mold.
You can then reuse the mold to make more identical parts.

This. 3D printing cannot achieve this.