We've written about this before, but I'm not sure everyone's seen the video. It's a really impressive production process. No doubt heavier than foam and possibly balsa, but that will improve over time with new materials.
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@troublemaker
It had both I believe but they reduce drag in different ways. "laminar flow wing" is about the air flowing over the wing while "elliptical wing" fights a wing tip vortex from forming I believe
Hey just wanted to say, is it the elliptical wing we are regarding as special or its the laminar flow wing. The spitfire etc was special i think because it had a laminar flow wing, if you look, the thickest part of the wing is actually about halfway back, not the usual one third.
The wind breaks away further back down the wing, reducing drag and creating a very fast wing. It also very thin and flush rivited. Both hard to prduce in light aircraft.
GA aircraft have not progressed much above 100-200 kts, even though small piston fighters were exceeding those speeds long ago. Thin, laminar, flush riveted wings are still expensive to manufacture.
@Paul - Just on your comment on the elliptical wing planform; I'd hardly call them unsuccessful. There have been several production aircraft that used it that come to mind. The primary difficulty has always been the cost of mass producing it. However, it is recognized as having an optimal lift distribution for many applications. If I were just making a small run of planes for some purpose and could do an elliptical planform as easily as any other, I'd use it.
Not world first.
There has been far more interesting developments performed in Sweden at Linköping University for some years in this area, see for example the research of David Lundström:
http://www.iei.liu.se/flumes/david-lundstrom?l=en
- Not only do they 3D-print the aircraft, but they optimize the structure and aerodynamics based on available components!
I saw a presentation of their research about a year ago, and was really impressed by how different batteries and motor combinations yielded different airframes. Then they would just print the structures needed and fly - even the control laws (and -code) needed to fly was given by the optimization.
I do like the homage to the Wellington, that is hard to produce in balsa.
@ paul
the take off was could have been the failing of the catapult instead of the aircraft right? lol even a jet fighter will do the same if they put to little power into the steam catapult.
Anyway.
if they need a stronger wing then they can change the internal structure to give more strength where they need it and/or less strength where they don't. But this is still an early 3D printer that uses one material to print in later versions already in the works they will be able to print in many different materials. At that point if they need a stronger wing they could still change the structure as well as composition.
Wing ribs stronger then today’s but half the weight because they’re made with pours 3D structures like the bones of a bird that can't be made anyother way. Composites where one side is pure steel, on the other pure ceramic and in the middle can be any combination or alloy you can imagine but is down right impossible with out 3D printers. And while you may laugh at things like the elliptical wing and geodesic construction which hasn’t been used scene WWII. But these design principles are known to work better then anything in use today they’re just too hard and time consuming to do by hand.
I do mean by hand because most Jet fighter, passenger aircraft and even personal aircrafts are still largely hand crafted and take years to make. Pieces made in different location using expensive specialty tools one at a time by works. Then these pieces have to be transported sometime half way around the world to be put together by hand.
It’s a slow expensive process and that’s why their “target market” is the large scale aircraft industry both civilian and military.
large scale 3D printed Aircraft will be made stronger, faster, cheaper while at the same time using less martial used in the construction process then they could ever dream of being made today. which is why I believe it's Airbus that is already working on 3D printer to make full size wing to one of their larger aircraft.
But I also agree with Matthew that for one-offs, it will eventually be unbeatable.
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