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Dr. Tommaso Ghidini Head of the Materials Technology Section 3D Printing & Additive Manufacturing – Industrial Applications Global Summit 2013 – London, UK, 19/20 - 11-2013

An Overview of Current AM Activities at the European Space Agency

Contact Details: tommaso.ghidini@esa.int laurent.pambaguian@esa.int

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Houston

Washington

Kourou

Moscow

ESA sites/facilities

Offices

ESTEC (Noordwijk)

Brussels ESA HQ (Paris)

Toulouse

ESAC (Madrid)

ESRIN (Rome)

EAC (Cologne)

ESOC (Darmstadt)

Harwell

Redu

Salmijaervi (Kiruna)

ESA ground stations

New Norcia

Santa Maria

Cebreros, Villafranca

Oberpfaffenhofen

Maspalomas

Perth Malargüe

ESA’s Locations

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•  Driving technology innovation for ESA missions and Europe’s overall industrial competitiveness.

•  Providing engineering expertise to all

ESA projects. •  Assuring quality, safety and standards

of ESA and industrial products and missions.

•  Coordinating European technology developments.

ESTEC: The Technical Heart of ESA

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Our (M&P + EEE) Remit

Verification of PA Requirement Compliance

Engineering Support in M&P and Components

Secure the Availability of Qualified Parts, Processes and Personnel for ESA Projects

Short/Medium and Long Term Access to Critical Technologies

“M&P and EEE shall ensure that the materials, mechanical parts and processes as well as the EEE Components used to assemble a spacecraft or a launcher are fit for purpose over the life of the mission”

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Additive Manufacturing (AM) at ESA

●  Challenges for Space Materials and Processes:

●  Why ALM?:

1.  Additive Layer Manufacturing is well fitted to Space hardware => very small series.

2.  Applied to many materials => metals, polymers, composites, ceramics for space but also food (for astronauts), living cells and organs (for telemedicine).

3.  Dimensions range from few micrometers to meters.

4.  Gains in performances with 2 digits => mass saving 40 to 90%, lead time reduced by weeks, suppress complex assemblies and controls.

5.  Environmentally friendly => excess material is re-used instead of being down-graded through re-cycling.

6.  Could be used for in-orbit or on other planets

●  Several developments are currently running under ESA funding including RF hardware, propulsion, thermal management and structures.

●  ESA has taken the lead on a Harmonisation Roadmap (see Key Note Presentation)

1.  Low Mass 2.  Small Production Series 3.  Very High Reliability 4.  Limited Manufacturing Processes

5.  Small Geometries 6.  Very High Performances 7.  Challenging Material Procurement

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Injectors Chamber/Nozzles

Monolithic Thrusters

AM for Space Propulsion

●  Functionally graded materials with gradual transition in composition and structure for thruster performances improvement

●  Reducing incompatibilities in material properties (e. g. CTE)

●  Enhanced monopropellant catalyst design ●  Lattice structure for thermal/weight management

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AM for Electrical Hardware

Conventional design for manufacturability, machining

Redesign for performances using AM capabilities

●  Mass & room saving (50% mass, 30% projected area) ●  Suppress assembly (cost saving, no failure risk) ●  Easier to control (no tightening torque, no electrical leakage) ●  Easier to silver coat (no sharp corner, easy electrode access) ●  Lead time reduced by weeks (9 made in a machine run)

Collaboration ESA – TESAT(D) – ILT (D)

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AM for Mechanical Hardware

1.   46% mass saving 2.   Suppress interfaces

3.   Vibration Test passed 4.   Dimensional Control

successful

Conventional Design

Design optimized for AM

●  Tensile Specimens in two orientations to characterize the anisotropy of the process

●  Cubes to assess the density

●  Two samples to characterize the feasibility of the design

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AM for New Exploration Mission Approach

ISRU improved - Lunar base concept

On demand production of spare parts and tools

remotely designed

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AM for Future Launchers

●  Screening of state-of-the-art for AM ●  Potential materials identified (at least

Aluminum, Titanium, Steel and Ceramics) ●  Elaboration of TDVP for Technology

maturation Manufacturing and testing of test samples and breadboard

●  Breadboard: Full scale clampband system

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AM in the Clean Space Program

Guaranteeing the future of space activities by protecting the environment ●  Smart development/selection of green technologies will

lead to improved competitiveness of European Industry.

●  Additive Manufacturing (AM) guarantees:

1.  Significant weight reduction (more than 50 % is often obtained, and up to 95% has been possible).

2.  Radical reduction of waste material compared to classical subtractive manufacturing.

3.  Manufacturing lead time shortening by Months.

4.  Drastic reduction of manufacturing steps.

5.  Decrease of energy consumption and reduction of CO2 footprint.

6.  Process speed optimization.

7.   Possibility for in-orbit / or ISRU /on-planet manufacturing.

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●  EC FP7 AMAZE (Additive Manufacturing Aiming Towards Zero Waste & Efficient Production of High Tech Metal Products)

●  28 industrial partners involved; 20 M€ funding ●  The 5-year project aims to develop the first

complete EU-autonomous supply chain for AM by 2017

●  Targeted industrial sectors: space, aeronautics, nuclear fusion, energy, automotive and tooling

●  For Space AMAZE aims to put a 3D ‘metal’ printer on the ISS

●  Astronauts will be able to produce tools and structures on demand

●  Entire satellites could one day be produced directly on the Station

●  Manufacturing in 0g with no launch structural requirements will mean drastic reduction of mass/time/costs

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●  Highly multi-sectoral project ●  15 high-tech metal demonstrators will be made

and tested, as well as benchmark parts and several hundred test-bars

●  Parts ranging from 2 millimetres up to 2 metres ●  From 500ºC up to 3500ºC in temperature ●  Feedstocks in wire and powder form ●  Using several new alloys and MMCs recently

developed in another ESA-led project, Accelerated Metallurgy

●  Strong focus on standards and certification

●  Contact: Prof. David Jarvis, ESA david.john.jarvis@esa.int

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AM Open Challenges

1.  ALM offer capabilities that could be revolutionary if applied to space products.

2.  To take full benefit of these capabilities the following key challenges need to be addressed:

•  Design challenges

a.  Current design tools need to be adapted to facilitate the AM specific features.

b.  Design rules for AM need to be established.

•  Manufacturing challenges

a.  Accuracy, reproducibility, reliability need to be guaranteed to through the manufacturing process from raw material to an end product.

•  (Space) Qualification / validation challenges

a.  Classical qualification do not apply - PA requirements need to be established.

b.  Process verification methodologies to be established and qualified.

c.  Compatibility with other manufacturing processes to be validated.

3.  ESA has taken the lead on a Harmonisation Roadmap in order to approach and solve the presented challenges with a common approach, avoiding distracting European resources and efforts.