Optimized Additive Manufactured Aircraft Structure

Big Metal Additive’s purpose in this Phase II effort will be to develop and demonstrate methods to reduce weight and improve performance of topology optimized aluminum structures produced from hybrid additive manufacturing, maturing the capability, and bringing it closer to adoption. The motivations for using topology optimization as a design tool are to improve vehicle performance through weight reduction, volume efficiency, and system integration. The unconventional geometry solutions offered by topology optimization present new structural features that have not been studied or validated in engineering practice. The production demonstration article produced in Phase I illustrates that topology optimized aluminum airframe designs can be produced readily using hybrid additive manufacturing. It also reveals structural members with constantly changing cross sections, nonlinear surfaces, tapers, flowing connections, and tapered paths to structural separations. These features represent optimized structural load paths and require study to validate that performance meets engineering prediction.  The continued development of this technology will bring increased flexibility and reconfigurable airframes that would provide customized solutions on accelerated timelines.