Additive Manufacturing Technique for Replacement of Complex Castings

Support for legacy aircraft systems is critical to the warfighter.Air Force sustainment responsibilities encompass thousands of airframes and engines, including systems that have been out of production since the 1960s and 1970s.Among the most critical out-of-production components are those made from aluminum, steel, and magnesium castings.Castings are essential to gearboxes and housings, which are required for virtually every aircraft in the Air Force inventory.OC-ALC has reported one gearbox housing with a lead time of 24 months and a cost of $80,000.Phase I of the RE-CRAFT program demonstrated a game changing solutionleveraging leading-edgeadditive manufacturing capability, providing step-function improvement in schedule and costto address the need for these castings.Demonstrating this solution took place through the combined application of CAD data in place of hard tooling (CAD as Tooling) and additive manufacturing to form ceramic molds to produce an aluminum investment casting identified by the Air Force (GAU-8 machine gun transfer housing) in a fraction of the time, with dramatically reduced cost relative to conventional methods.Renaissance Services, working with investment casting foundries, will leverage the results of Phase I to extend and enhance the RE-CRAFT technology and transition into a commercial production environment.