power2AM – Implementation of additive manufacturing for highly stressed helicopter drive components based on a stringent certifiable printing process

A The project aims to integrate additive manufacturing (AM) into aircraft powertrains, in particular for the development, production and certification of critical components of helicopter gearboxes. The advantages of additive manufacturing will be used to develop new, economical and cost-efficient products that reduce weight and emissions, as well as enabling shorter production times and lower costs. To this end, existing certification regulations are being analysed and an implementation process defined.

Another focus is on the fundamental definition of a digital twin that integrates the design, the LPBF process including monitoring, and CAD/CAM. The project concentrates on the precise definition of the printing process, including all necessary framework conditions and parameters, and the evaluation of the results through fundamental experiments. This includes the selection of suitable materials and the derivation of the necessary printing parameters to ensure consistent and error-free reproduction, as well as the investigation of the process strategy, for example, the potential analysis of multi-laser systems and strategies for transferability to other machines.

To ensure consistent component quality through LPBF, a comprehensive analysis and definition of quality assurance is carried out, including possible ‘online/offline’ procedures, ‘in-situ’ melt pool monitoring and non-destructive testing methods such as CT. The experimental verification will be carried out on specific components, using all the developed process steps and AM-adapted design methods, such as topology optimisation. Finally, the suitability of the developed AM components will be verified and validated by means of approval-relevant and practical tests in a transmission. In an industrial stress test, the developed process chain will be used to analyse and quantify the positive influence of the process on the environmental balance, using a conventionally manufactured reference product as a basis.