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Suppressed by the ever growing number of jets all around, the mini-plane Thor was certainly an eye-catcher at the Berlin air show held this week itself. It's a small Airbus designed world's first 3D-printed aircraft.
Thor which stands for "Test of High-tech Objectives in Reality" - resembles a large, white model airplane and is windowless, with a weight of just 21 kilos (nearly 46 pounds) and dimensionally measures less than four meters (13 feet) long. It's a small pilotless propeller aircraft that offers a taste of several things that might get unfurl in the near future - an aviation future when 3D printing technology promises to save not just the time but fuel and money as well.
"This is a test of what's possible with 3D printing technology. We want to see if we can speed up the development process by using 3D printing not just for individual parts but for an entire system.," said Detlev Konigorski, who was in charge of developing Thor for Airbus, speaking at the International Aerospace Exhibition and Air Show at Berlin's southern Schoenefeld airport.
In Thor, the only parts that are not printed from a substance called polyamide are the electrical elements. The little plane "flies beautifully, it is very stable," said its chief engineer Gunnar Haase, who conducted Thor's inaugural flight last November near the northern German city of Hamburg.
Airbus and its US rival Boeing are already using 3D printing, notably to make parts for their huge passenger jets the A350 and B787 Dreamliner."The printed pieces have the advantage of requiring no tools and that they can be made very quickly," said Jens Henzler of Bavaria-based Hofmann Innovation Group, which specializes in the new technology.
The metal parts produced can also be 30-50 percent lighter than in the past, and there is almost zero manufacturing waste, added Henzler, who is managing director for Hofmann industrial prototyping.The sky is not the limit for the technology as its engineers also plan to use it in space. The future Ariane 6 rocket of European space agency ESA, set to blast off from 2020, is set to feature many printed pieces.
"It brings big cost reductions in parts manufacturing," said Alain Charmeau, head of Airbus Safran Launchers.Partially as a result of this, the Ariane 6 may have half the price tag of its predecessor Ariane 5.
The new 3D printers can make pieces up to 40 centimeters (15 inches) long and is of most use in particularly complex designs. Charmeau said Airbus is testing how to print an injection assembly for an engine that is now assembled from 270 individual pieces and with 3D printing, it has just three parts." Aside from the costs savings, 3D printing also promises ecological benefits as lighter jets use less fuel and chuck out fewer pollutants.
To reducing carbon emissions in aviation - with air traffic expected to double in the next 20 years - "the decisive issue is radical technical innovation in a relatively short time," said Ralf Fuecks, head of the Heinrich Boell foundation think tank of the German Green Party. Ralf at the ILA event with Airbus president Tom Enders also stated that 3D printing is certainly going to play a major role in changing this.
The recent survey in which nearly 102 aviation sector players by German high-tech federation Bitkom participated also reveal that the air travel industry is already convinced of the benefits of the 3-D printing technology a nearly 70 percent of respondents believed that by 2030 aircraft spare parts will be printed directly at airports, whilst 51 percent believe that entire planes will by then be manufactured by 3D printing itself.
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