Gorgeous 3D Printed Metal Aerospace Part

This is a lobed exhaust mixer, an aerospace component, which is traditionally fabricated using sheet metal. The challenge is that it’s difficult to bend and cut sheet metal into such complex shapes. Moreover joins in sheet metal are frowned upon in aerospace components because they degrade the fatigue resistance of the part. This is a perfect combination of problems where metal additive manufacturing offers a solution.

This part was printed on a 3D Systems DMP Factory 500 almost fully using its 500 x 500 x 500 mm build volume. The funny thing is people think the lattice structure on the outer surface is part of the design. Actually it’s not. The lattice is added as a supporting structure to eliminate the chance of warpage which could creep in while building such a large and thin walled part. But the supports look so cool that we asked our engineers to let leave them on the part for a Wow! effect.

This gorgeous metal part has been quite a crowd puller at Formnext 2019.