Positioned for take-off in the aerospace industry
Professor Xinhua Wu pictured with a 3D printing of a small jet engine
Expertise in 3D printing, a fast and creative process that offers many environmental benefits, is putting Australia at the forefront of the global aerospace industry.
Under the direction of Professor Xinhua Wu, Monash University researchers are providing answers for manufacturers such as French aerospace group Safran, who are seeking new manufacturing processes that make components lighter and cheaper than traditional ones, but without any reduction in performance.
Professor Wu, an internationally recognised leader in the field, brings not only research expertise but 25 years of industry experience to her position as head of the Monash Centre for Additive Manufacturing (MCAM).
“When industry wants particular performance benefits, under particular conditions, we understand what they need and why, and we are increasingly able to deliver it,” she said.
“Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, has the potential to bring huge economic as well as environmental benefits, and I believe the next generation of aerospace manufacturing may well start here, in Australia.”
Using 3D printing, engine components can be produced in dramatically shorter time frames - rather than taking up to two years by using a mould, a component can be made in a week.
The printing builds directly from digital designs, and is virtually waste-free. It uses what is effectively a computerised layering process, building up layer after layer of metallic powder. Depending on the purpose of the end product, titanium, nickel, aluminium or steel alloys may be selected for their various properties and applications.
The nature of the process strips away the creative limitations imposed by traditional methods - a component can rapidly be made, tested, modified and rebuilt. Highly complex designs can be generated in one process, without the need to modify or join parts, and redundant weight can be removed from components without reducing their performance capacities.
“It opens up the imagination,” Professor Wu said. “You are quite unrestricted in what you can do.”
The process is inherently environmentally friendly, reducing energy and materials usage, but it also has immense advantages in terms of being able to reduce the weight of planes or engines, with concomitant decreases in carbon emissions. It may even be used to help reduce noise pollution.
“Monash is one of the few places in the world to have both the technology and the research expertise needed to make this step into the future a reality. The unique strength of MCAM is that the Centre can deliver not only the benefits in terms of manufacturing, design and cost reduction, but also being able to engineer the required microstructure and mechanical properties in 3D printed components to meet the specification requirements for individual applications” Professor Wu said.
MCAM will be lending these strengths to the new Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Transforming Australia’s Manufacturing Industry through High Value Manufacturing, an Australian Research Council initiative. The hub, which launches later this week, will link Monash, Deakin University and the University of Queensland with industry partners to produce a range of 3D printed parts.
Professor Wu’s attention to date has been chiefly on aerospace, but she has recently been extending her research to the potential of 3D printing for producing made-to-measure surgical instruments and bio-medical implants.