Airbus designer reveals plans for 3D printed planes by 2050

An Airbus designer is drawing up plans to create a plane from a 3D printer the size of an aircraft hanger by 2050.

Airbus employee Bastian Schafer envisions an 80-metre-long aircraft with a curved body made from transparent material, so passengers feel as though they're flying among the clouds, reports Forbes. Airbus proposed the concept of a 2050 self-cleaning aircraft with inbuilt neural networks, antioxidant enriched air and body heat harvesting facilities in 2011, but how such an aircraft would be built was not explained.

It turns out Schafer has been working on the concept for the past two years, pooling together a team of ten Airbus industrial designers with the ominous promise, "we have an opportunity to do something different".

Despite the cost of building such an obscenely large 3D printer and the feats in technology that need to be mastered before it is even a possibility, the argument is that the resulting lightweight aircraft (65 percent lighter than a normal one, according to parent company the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company) will be far cheaper to operate. As rocketing fuel prices show no sign of slowing, the idea is appealing.

The innovation arm of Eads opened a £2.6 million Centre for Additive Layer Manufacturing (CALM) back in 2011 with the University of Exeter to exploreopportunities for 3D printing in industry, and is already looking to pioneer 3D-printed plane parts. After making a few changes to ensure its model is regulation-ready, Airbus plans to have 3D printed components in the cabins of its A380s by the end of 2012. Its Eurofighter Typhoon military jet already has some internal 3D printed components.

These are mere baby steps towards the production of a plane constructed entirely of 3D printed parts. But it's not just the sheer size that will be an obstacle for Airbus (D-Shape, the biggest 3D printer currently in operation, has only ever made structures of a few metres in height). A type of transparent aluminum sturdy enough to make up the aircraft's body currently only exists in the imagination of the designers and technicians, as do the biopolymers proposed for some of its internal components. Schafer and his team are not too troubled by this, believing that multi-material 3D printers -- such as the one built by Objet -- can be used to generate the new materials. Objet currently offers consumers a range of 107 different materials that can be used with its printer -- this gives engineers the tools to experiment with bonding different materials to create prototypes.

"It's not theoretically impossible," said David Benjamin, a New York architect working with Airbus. "You can design new products that are not all solid and aluminum, but a composite material. You're designing new substances.

"You can dial in the different elasticity of an object, the color properties, or a continuous piece of material that is different properties over the piece. Certain parts of an airplane need to be strong and flexible [and 3D printers can create objects] strong just where they needed to be strong, or light where they needed to be light."

This may be some way off, however, and in the meantime, Schafer is happy to focus on the baby steps. He hopes consumers will be kicking back in 3D printed cabin seats by by 2013.

Source : wired.co.uk