Titomic
Titomic Kinetic Fusion
Titomic Kinetic Fusion
Australian metal additive manufacturing company Titomic has signed an agreement with US aerospace and defence tooling and automation provider Ascent Aerospace to deploy its Titomic Kinetic Fusion (TKF) process for the manufacture of aerospace tooling.
Ascent is one of the largest tooling and automation groups within the industry and produces a range of composite tooling, layup moulds, mandrels, bond tools, and trim and drill fixtures, including the largest Invar moulds ever made for aerospace. The partnership with Titomic will allow the company to explore the use of additive to address challenging aerostructure assembly requirements.
Mr. Michael Mahfet, CEO of Ascent Aerospace, commented: “Staying at the forefront of additive manufacturing positions us to remain the leader in new and innovative tooling solutions, supporting strong collaboration with our customers and supplementing our in-house, vertically integrated design and fabrication capabilities. We look forward to working with Titomic in the advancement of metallic 3D printing for the aerospace tooling industry.”
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The two-phase partnership will commence with a validation phase which will see Titomic deliver an Ascent customer approved Invar36 tool printed on the TKF9000 system for testing and feasibility trials. The two will then form a joint-sales strategy for the supply of aerospace tooling using TKF to reduce lengthy lead times.
Mr. Jeff Lang, Titomic Managing Director, added: “The significant increase in the global tooling market is being driven by the aerospace and defence industries’ compounding need for higher production rates of carbon fiber parts. The increased use of carbon fiber parts in commercial aircraft has created a backlog in the supply of tooling that is not being resolved. Titomic’s partnership with Ascent Aerospace makes strategic sense to further validate the commercial opportunities for industrial scale metal additive manufacturing using Titomic’s TKF systems to resolve this current, and ongoing, backlog for tooling."
The news is said to follow extensive research carried out by Titomic to explore the potential for TKF to improve performance, part production and lead times in metal tooling for the aerospace and defence sectors. TKF is a solid-state metal AM technology, which enables large, complex parts to be produced with dissimilar metals using a cold spray process developed by the national research organisation CSIRO. Last year Titomic teamed Gilmour Space on R&D for rocket components using TKF in a bid to accelerate Australia’s space exploration activities.
