From Plastic Bike to Plastic Wings…

Only just seen this thread.

It’s actually old hat. The process is known as “Rapid prototyping” and yes it can be printed in layers or Lasered in a Gel. Two lasers solidify the Gel at their intersection. You (Yes you) can design something on a PC Catia program and have it made in a day or less. And it isn’t that expensive. Some ‘puter Gamers have themselves (There is a program which takes a 3D photo of your face) made into 12″ high “casts” in the uniform of their hero.
And the beauty of it is that it picks up every detail that has been drawn on the Catia. I have seen massive Aircraft structures (A Skinless Wing including all the Ribs, Trailing edge, leading edge!) produced at Desk size. When you look at them with a Mag. glass, the Bolt heads are there! Very delicate though, it’s for looking at and assisting the designers….nothing like a physical representation to finalise a design.
So, the technology “Must” be able to one day produce real parts.
Rest assured, metal bashers will be here for a few more years.

Also, look into the spraying of Carbon fibre tows. Instead of a sheet of Woven cloth, ot a UD tape, a certain car maker is working on (Or was, before the money ran out) spraying strands about 8″ long out of a rectangular nozzle. The effect is millions of threads all interleaved/inter-twined as per a Birds nest. Very VERY strong in certain circumstances. The advantage is the speed it puts the stuff down, 6 kg per minute….about 60 times faster than conventional methods of today.
Drawbacks. The finish, on BOTH sides is dire, and I mean dire. Also, the length of a Carbon Tow is critical to get the best possible strength to weight ratio, we need th etows to lie along (Or cross) the lines of most stress in a part. The crows nesting is no good for that. It will be OK for Mudguards and similar.

Could this technology be used to build entire wings and fuselages using Nylon?

‘Stronger than steel’ is a much-used and much-misunderstood phrase and I would say pretty meaningless when it came to airframe design; the main requirement for materials used for this type of design is ‘stiffness’. Many materials are ‘stronger’ than steel (by weight), wood, human hair, spider’s webs, but only some of them are good for building aircraft.

Nylon has a couple of problems that would make it unsuitable for wing design, it melts (or softens) at too low a temperature, as you said, and it absorbs water (so it isn’t dimensionally consistent).

I like the idea of someone designing a fuselage and hitting the PRINT button!

Maybe the technology is spot on, but the choice of material needs to be refined. I understand the “resolution” is around 0.1mm which is quite rough, but as with all technologies this should improve. Gone the days when you employed hundreds of metal bashers to make a fuselage or set of wings. I just hope we don’t give this technology away or make it impossible for other companies to employ this game-changing technology.

Possibly may be fragile at altitude where it’s freezing cold, but they would no doubt cover that prior to going into production.

Lincoln .7