After successfully cooperating with French Airbus aircraft engine supplier Safran, COMAC, and other civil aviation companies, and developing and industrializing a series of 3D printed aircraft metal structural parts, China Metal 3D Printer Equipment Technology Company SZBF Technology Co., Ltd.`s wholly-owned subsidiary in Australia has signed a series of cooperation agreements with an important supplier of the United States Boeing Company to jointly provide metal printing services and airworthiness certification for Boeing Company. As the first landing contract, the Boeing supplier will purchase 15 metal 3D printers and corresponding powder pre-processing and post-processing systems from SZBF. The U.S. plant will be used to provide Boeing with 3D printing of metal structural parts service.
SZBF is a manufacturer of full-process metal 3D printing equipment systems. Its SP series metal 3D printers are full-process 3D printing equipment systems designed according to the requirements of international aviation manufacturing units, integrating powder processing systems, 3D printing equipment and product post-processing. system. The system can complete a complete set of 3D printing processes in an inert atmosphere, so that metal powders are protected in an inert atmosphere during use, eliminating problems such as cross-contamination of powders and quality differences between powder batches. The production unit provided the necessary equipment conditions to meet airworthiness standards.
At the same time, the system is equipped with a switchable forming bin system, which can quickly complete the switching of the workpiece forming bin in a fully inert gas protective atmosphere, minimize the equipment standby time, and greatly improve the effective utilization of the equipment.
The company developed a special aluminum alloy material for high-strength and high-toughness additive manufacturing. The material strength reaches the highest level among aluminum alloy materials currently available for 3D printing. The yield strength can reach 580 MPa, the tensile strength is above 590 MPa, and the elongation rate can reach 11%. It is more promising to replace some titanium alloy components in the aerospace industry by using this material to make aviation aluminum alloy 3D printed structural parts, so as to achieve the purpose of reducing weight and saving costs in the aerospace industry.
The Boeing supplier will use SZBF's series of 3D printers to produce aluminum, titanium, and nickel-based superalloy aviation small-to-medium batch parts. With the addition of a full-process control 3D printing system, the company has now introduced a range of facilities to its entire industrial production process, including design, powder management, 3D printing, heat treatment, machining, and defect inspection.
Since the launch of the SP series printers, SZBF has been expanding the international market. This cooperation with the Boeing supplier marks SZBF's breakthrough progress in Europe and the United States, and also indicates that SZBF's industrial 3D printing system has reached the international leading level.
The person in charge of the Boeing supplier said that the addition of the SZBF equipment system helped them shorten the part manufacturing time and improve the stability and consistency of product performance, effectively improve product quality, and greatly reduce product production costs. Custom components can be customized according to customer needs. This cooperation marks a new stage in the aviation application of 3D printing, which provides strong support for the development of the world's civil aircraft.