A Comprehensive Review on the Application of 3D Printing in the Aerospace Industry

Abstract

Additive manufacturing is a process wherein a three-dimensional object is created layer-by-layer. It offers adaptability to the geometrical complexity and customizability of the design, which is difficult to manufacture using conventional manufacturing. The aerospace industry is one of the sectors that first adopted additive manufacturing, particularly three-dimensional printing (3D printing) in the production of aircraft parts such as rocket engine components, oil fuel tanks, environmental control system ducting, combustor liner, custom cosmetic aircraft interior components, and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) components. The aircraft's most common materials used in the 3D printing prototype parts are acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) thermoplastic, carbon-fiber and thermoplastic composite, and nylon 12 using selective laser sintering, fused deposition modeling, or composite filament co-extrusion technology. One of the aerospace industry's challenges is ensuring the efficiency and quality of aircraft structural parts that typically require complicated manufacturing due to their complexity and variability of function. Additive manufacturing is seen to respond to this challenge by developing and prototyping 3D printed parts and exploring practical 3D printing technologies.