Primary Aerospace Structures: an AM Case Study

Conference Abstract: This case study highlights the workflow and considerations necessary for adopting additive manufacturing (AM) for production of bluShift Aerospace's stainless small payload rocket’s oxidizer valve body. The valve body under consideration is currently made by machining subassembly aluminum parts which are assembled and fastened together. Our design results indicate that by leveraging AM we can reduce the mass and part count of the valve body, allowing for additional payload.

The research was broken into two main thrusts including design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) and also an experimental investigation of as-printed bulk mechanical properties. DfAM included materials and AM process selection, as well as generative design which was performed to reduce valve body mass. A hybrid AM approach was also considered, consisting of both laser-wire direct energy deposition (LW-DED) and laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). Here, LW-DED preforms were built on top of the same made via LPBF and electric discharge machined into coupons for testing. Mechanical properties were collected through microhardness and tensile testing.  The approach determined that adopting additive manufacturing not only requires resources in the form of either new hardware or suppliers, but also requires technical savviness and agility to navigate the decision making process.