Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) Speeds Design Changes For Leptron

additive manufacturing, Leptron, aerospace

Leptron’s RDASS 4 UAS

Companies that produce unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have been quick to take advantage of additive manufacturing (AM) to generate rapid iterations of complex designs to increase performance and reduce time to market. AM also enables many UAS manufacturers to manufacture in low volume while meeting cost and leadtime constraints.

The Stratasys white paper entitled “Additive Manufacturing Trends in Aerospace: Leading the Way” provides an overview on how nine leading aerospace companies are using AM in a wide spectrum of applications. The fourth of four excerpts from the paper explains how Leptron — which makes remotely piloted helicopters — made 200 design changes without incurring a time or cost penalty by using AM parts.

When the design was ready to take off, Leptron had flight-ready parts in less than 48 hours, all thanks to AM. And for this project, there were multiple designs for specific applications, such as eight variations for the nesting integrated fuselage components. If it had used injection molding, as it had in the past, tooling expense would have exceeded $250,000 and production parts would have arrived six months later.

View or download the complete “Additive Manufacturing Trends in Aerospace: Leading the Way” white paper.

View the first excerpt previously posted here.

View the second excerpt previously posted here.

View the third excerpt previously posted here.

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