An additive manufacturing redesign of a military aircraft equipment within a logistic 4.0 framework

Aerospace industry has increasing interest in Additive Manufacturing (AM) since its beginnings in the ‘80s and in the last decade new advancements in these technologies have led a proliferation of applications from the prototyping to the direct part manufacturing, rapid tooling and repairing. AM for aerospace industry is no more only a very promising production technology but a real product/process/business game-changer offering opportunities previously unfeasible. At the same time, it requires a new complex design and development environment which introduction and regular adoption within aerospace industry practice represents a great challenge. One of the most important applications of AM for aerospace systems are those related to the improvement of all the logistic aspects of the production line. Indeed, because of its strong foundation on the digital world the AM allows a modification of the present logistic organization permitting remote manufacturing, obsolescence management and easy customization of realized components within a serial production. Finally, it is relevant to point out that AM enables easy integration of design change, has the capability to build virtually any shape, and at least as important it allows complex feature integration and part count reduction, greatly simplifying product assembly. In the present research, a fruitful collaboration between the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Italian Military Air Force - Official Test Center, the possibility to apply the AM in a logistical framework is investigated. Objective of the study is the stand-by-compass of the vehicle MB-339. As a first step the equipment geometry is acquired. Then, the stand-by-compass is re-designed in the Design for Additive Manufacturing framework and a flight test is performed as a functional validation of the manufactured equipment. As a final step, the original equipment and the AM manufactured one are compared by vibration tests. The potential improvements provided by topology optimization are discussed, along with the drawbacks. The importance of the manufacturing strategies for an efficient management of support structures are highlighted.