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The aeroplane seat at the centre of Andreas Bastian's research project.
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Close-up view of the complex, lattice structure resulting from the Netfabb software.
An Autodesk research scientist has combined modern additive manufacturing methods with traditional casting methods to design a lightweighted aeroplane seat, which he believes could save airlines millions of dollars.
Andreas Bastian has been working on the development of an aircraft seat frame, suitable for any standard commercial jet, at Pier 9, Autodesk’s 27,000-square foot technology centre in San Francisco, for the last year. Collaborating on the project with Andy Harris in Autodesk’s advanced consulting group, the pair noted that, although additive manufacturing has come on leaps and bounds and offers an alternative solution for manufacturers, the material options are still limited. Additive manufacturing supports dozens of materials, but casting can be done in thousands of metals and composites.
Thus, the project would harness the advantages of additive manufacturing, without relying on it solely. Bastian saw an opportunity to utilise both 3D printing and casting, allowing the two methods to complement each other, to produce the seat frame.
“While additive manufacturing holds great promise for the future of manufacturing, it’s still very new for many product developers,” said Bastian. “Casting, by contrast, has been around for millennia and is incredibly well understood. There are hundreds of thousands of engineers, foundries, and factories with deep expertise in it. That’s one of the reasons I am looking for a bridge between the two.”
Harris added: “We can generate these incredible high-performance designs, but we had to look beyond direct metal additive manufacturing for this project. The size and cost just wouldn't work for fabricating this part.”
Autodesk airline seat 3
Bastian shows off how lightweight the new seat frame really is.
3D printing was used to print positive moulds or patterns of the seat frames in plastic, such is the technology’s superior capability to handle complex lattice geometry. Bastian made the decision to print in plastic rather than metal with cost, time and flexibility in mind. The printed patterns were then used to create ceramic moulds for casting, providing a much more affordable way for producing seat frames in larger quantities.
Since, Pier 9, equipped with a range of 3D printing and CNC machines, did not possess investment casting solutions, Bastian approach Jack Ziemba and Paul Leonard, the CEO and VP of Aristo Cast, respectively.
“We leapt at the opportunity to work with Andreas and Autodesk. It’s an exciting project and allowed us to pioneer some new techniques for magnesium casting,” said Leonard. “It also gave us a chance to learn more about advanced design and optimisation techniques. That’s still quite new in our industry.”
Ziemba continues, “We’ve seen a lot foundries in our region shutter their doors in recent years as manufacturing moves overseas. We see adopting new techniques like additive manufacturing, even when blended with our expertise in casting, as a way forward—not just for our company but for lots of other foundries in the Midwest.”
With the help of Aristo Cast’s expertise, Bastian took advantage of the opportunity to further reduce the weight of his seat frame by casting in magnesium instead of the aluminium typically used for aeroplane seats. Though magnesium casting is a complicated process, at 35% lighter than aluminium, the collaborators judged it to be worth it.
Bastian went back to Harris with the new idea to use magnesium. Harris ran the simulations for the part in the new metal through Netfabb software, and confirmed its properties. The updated 3D model was then sent back to Aristo Cast, who printed the pattern in plastic resin before coating it with ceramic, creating a negative mould – the plastic was heated and vaporised away once the ceramic shell had hardened. Parts were casted, initially, in small quantities, but the project has given Bastian, Harris and co reason to believe the process is viable and could be scaled up to produce 160 seats every two days.
Autodesk airline seat
Table projecting the weight, cost and fuel savings Bastian's aeroplane seat will have.
What could this mean for commercial airline manufacturers? Bastian and Rhet McNeal, another Pier 9 resident, calculated that if Airbus, for example, replaced all 615 seats on 100 A380 jets, which typically have a 20-year lifespan, the company would save $206,648,920 based on the average cost of jet fuel in 2015. The pair also figured this equates to a reduction of around 126,000 tonnes of C02 emissions over that same period – the equivalent of removing 80,000 cars from the road for a year.
“Autodesk is pushing the boundaries on the light-weighting possibilities for aerospace,” said Bastian Schaefer, an Innovation Manager at Airbus. “We see their combination of generative design, shape optimisation and advanced fabrication technologies as absolutely essential to the next generation of more fuel-efficient, more sustainable aircrafts.”
Autodesk feel inclined to stress that, for the time being at least, this is still a research project. Though, the minds behind said project concede its one with clear benefits to commercial applicability.
“This is the kind of cutting-edge work we’re doing at Pier 9, and at Autodesk’s other fabrication facilities around the world,” said Jacob Hennessey-Rubin, a customer experience manager for Autodesk’s global technology centres. “We’re doing this kind of experimental research to show our customers what’s possible when you push the limits on software, hardware and materials. This is what’s possible when you embrace the future of making things.”
Bastian has the final word: “The purpose of this project was never to sell seat frames. The intent is to show the power of combining Autodesk’s advanced technologies in generative design and additive manufacturing with more a much more widely-used fabrication process: casting. Yes, there are great applications for aerospace, but this combination can also be used in automotive, medical devices, industrial equipment, and many other fields.”
