Why does Additive Manufacturing make perfect sense for Drones Manufacturing?
Let us share with you 3 thoughts on the matter.
- Everything you always wanted to have combined, but never dared to ask for:
materials variety, lightweight solutions, manufacturing on-demand, rapid prototyping (iterations might be needed), design flexibility (aka: freedom to innovate with quirky shapes for optimized aerodynamics, integration of payloads and possibly even thermal management).
AM can offer all of that. - Let’s focus on one mechanical property: Fatigue Strength.It is especially needed in drones to withstand flight cycles, with stress peaks at take-off & landing and shocks & vibrations given by strong winds. It is also to be considered that drones carry payloads (like cameras, thermal cameras etc.) that might not be evenly distributed. Aluminum Alloys (here we go) represent a solution that the Aerospace Industry has validated decades ago, especially for fatigue strength:7075 leads the way in terms of performance, used in aircrafts since WWII, like 2024.
6061 and 7050 are used since the ’50s and ’60s respectively (7050 especially for high cycling loadings).Also to be mentioned is 5083, used for over seventy years in sea-aircrafts due to its corrosion resistance.
The usage of Aluminum Alloys in Additive Manufacturing is constantly growing – just google it. That sums it up for us.
- Beside defense, there are many civilian applications that are covered or about to be covered by drones: agriculture, infrastructure, fire/emergency response, search & rescue, roads monitoring, mapping, critical deliveries…Metal 3D printing solutions may only address a few of these applications, but probably more than just the fixed-wing types of drones.
With regards to the latter, see what is done in Southern California by Firestorm and Divergent and get an idea. They both hit the headlines a couple of weeks ago.
CONCLUSIONS:
The known advantages brought by additive manufacturing resonate with the drones’ design requirements. A larger use of the AM process in general and Aluminum powders in particular is to be expected in the years to come.