In the aerospace industry, Thales Alenia Space, Europe's most advanced and comprehensive aerospace company, and Poly-Shape SAS, a French 3D printing services company, have entered into a partnership for new communications in Korea. The satellites, Koreasat-5A and Koreasat-7, offer additive manufacturing components, which again confirms that 3D metal printing technology is an innovative enabler and pioneer of digital manufacturing. It is understood that Koreasat-7 will be launched into the east 116o space orbital position in 2017, covering South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and India; Koreasat-5A will also be launched in the second quarter of 2017, and enter the East 113 The space orbital location of ° covers South Korea, Japan, the Indochina and the Middle East. The oversized components on the two satellites will be manufactured in collaboration with Thales Alenia Space and Poly-Shape.
According to reports, the antenna brackets of Koreasat-5A and Koreasat-7 will be the largest volume parts ever made in Europe using powder bed-based metal laser melting technology and sent into space orbit. It measures 447 x 204.5 x 391mm3 and weighs only 1.13kg, making it a truly lightweight component. But for the Thales Alenia Space, the real challenge comes from the size of the parts. The part is a very large engineering component made of additive material from Poly-Shape SAS, France, and will be installed in the Koreasat-5A and Koreasat-7 as a base bracket for the antenna to communicate with the ground base. As an expert in 3D printing, Poly-Shape SAS is a renowned partner in prototyping, 3D metal printing and assembly for the aerospace industry.
Lightweight structure and cost reduction are major advantages
Aluminum (Al) has advantages in weight and thermal conductivity and is the most commonly used metal material on satellites because the weight of the satellite that needs to be sent into space orbit is as light as possible. According to Florence Montredon, head of additive manufacturing at Thales Alenia Space, “According to past experience, the actual cost of delivering 1kg of weight into space orbit is about 20,000 euros, so every gram needs to be carefully calculated. Koreasat-5A and Koreasat-7 The take-off weight of these two new satellites is around 3,500 kg.†Additive manufacturing technology has great potential in lightweight construction.
Space applications require materials with high strength, stiffness and corrosion resistance, so Thales Alenia Space chose the AISi7Mg alloy for this additive manufacturing component. And during the component verification process, the additive manufactured part showed a low porosity of <1% and finally passed the dynamic test of Thales Alenia Space. According to Florence Montredon, “The effect of additive manufacturing is significant: compared to conventional structures, the weight of the bionic additive manufacturing structure is reduced by 22%. More importantly, while the productivity is greatly improved, the cost is also reduced by 30%. ""
A 30% cost reduction is related to multiple factors. First of all, the assembly cost is eliminated: only one additive bionic component is produced, and the design and manufacture are completed in one time. Previously, 9 parts need to be produced and reassembled. Secondly, the mold necessary for using the casting process is omitted. Cost; and, with the most interesting time cost, additive manufacturing technology can be easily and guaranteed to be as productive as the project. In the industry, this is called the first time to enter the market or to seize the market (Time-to-Market), the industry becomes the time-to-Fly.
Europe's largest additive manufacturing component in space orbit: satellite's aluminum antenna bracket (size: x: 447mm; y: 204.5 mm; z: 391 mm – removes the height of the slab), manufactured by Concept Laser's X line 1000R.
Concept Laser's very large machines and equipment
Poly-Shape has 28 3D metal printing devices with different construction spaces. At present, all of Poly-Shape's equipment that can use aluminum alloy powder for 3D printing, the largest construction space size is the Concept Laser X line 1000R. The unit is available in a 630 x 400 x 500mm3 construction space and is safely produced under inert gas for powder production and powder screening management, all designed to ATEX safety standards. In addition, the X line 1000R has a rotating mechanism that alternates between the two construction modules, thus ensuring continuous production and no downtime. This unique device design not only provides extremely high time availability, but also makes the installation and disassembly of the machine simple and safe.
Its upgraded model X line 2000R even has a larger construction space (800 x 400 x 500mm3), which is currently unmatched in the global laser melting of powder beds. Compared to the X line 1000R, its effective construction volume increases again by approximately 27% from 126 l to 160 l. In addition, the upgrade model uses two lasers each with a power of 1,000W. Concept Laser's LaserCUSING process is of great significance to the project: The Concept Laser device is characterized by random control of slice segments (also known as "islands") that require continuous processing. This patented approach ensures significant stress reduction when manufacturing very large parts.
When dealing with the large size of 447 x 204.5 x 391 mm3, there is no doubt that maximum control of warpage is required. The X line 1000R provides a balanced temperature control of the construction space, avoiding warpage when manufacturing "very large" parts. Making large and complex bionic geometries is of course time consuming, but Concept Laser's 3D metal printing equipment took only a few days to produce the huge product of the project.
Process-compliant design
The transition to additive manufacturing means that design thinking also needs to change. In order to fully exploit the potential of laser melting, 1:1 copy geometry is meaningless. In order to trim 3D parts to meet the performance requirements of geometry, bionics and lightweight construction, CAE-CAD assisted methods are required. Florence Montredon said: “Obviously, we have confirmed that additive manufacturing will be a strong contender for more projects. In the future, we also want to put thermal or radio features directly on or within the 3D structure, the next task. It is a functional integration. This is also a logical result based on the potential of additive manufacturing."
in conclusion
The Koreasat-5A and Koreasat-7 projects demonstrate the feasibility of ultra-large, high-precision additive manufacturing components for space applications. With the simulated bionic design, the parts manufactured by the additive can reduce the 9 parts that were previously needed to be reduced into one part. The one-time process eliminates the previous assembly cost in the manufacturing process; it also gets significantly better. The lightweight construction potential; the additive manufacturing solution can be used to reduce the weight by 22% and the final weight is only 1.13kg. This is a huge leap in every application where weight per gram is critical; 3D geometry can be optimally tailored to the conditions of use in space orbit. The impressive results of the project demonstrate the potential of additive manufacturing in the aerospace industry and it is believed that there will be more such projects in the aerospace industry in the future.
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