J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII

FriedRiceNSpice

FriedRiceNSpice

Captain
manqiangrexue said:
And I absolutely fully support enhancing production methods for any benefit, but clearly, the added strength and reduced weight are the goal, and any cost savings are a small bonus. But you guys were talking about melting titanium shavings. That's a traditional method before the 3D printing method, right? How much could you possibly save melting metal shavings compared to the >$100M price tag of a J-20??
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Melting shavings indeed would have a small impact, but switching to using additive manufacturing would likely be a very significant cost saving (that could translate to substantially more J-20s being produced for the same cost).
 
D

Derpy

Junior Member
Registered Member
siegecrossbow said:
The cost saving is significant, as per 601’s paper documenting laser based 3D printing. Structural strength and reduced weight are added bonus.
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The main reason for 3D printing compared to a milled block is that you are much less limited in design, a part milled out of a block is almost universally going to be stronger then an identical 3D printed part. The potential increased strength and reduced weight comes from an optimized design not possible to manufacture with milling. Even a multi axis mill is limited in that the tool have to be able to reach the areas you want to machine without for instance the holder or spindle interfering with the part or that you get to much vibration in thin walled parts while machining.
Here is a video illustrating some of the challenges with milling complex parts and interference.
This is 60kg titanium turned into 1.9kg part, such huge differentials between the starting material and finished part is very common in aircraft structural parts.
 
L

latenlazy

Brigadier
Derpy said:
The main reason for 3D printing compared to a milled block is that you are much less limited in design, a part milled out of a block is almost universally going to be stronger then an identical 3D printed part. The potential increased strength and reduced weight comes from an optimized design not possible to manufacture with milling. Even a multi axis mill is limited in that the tool have to be able to reach the areas you want to machine without for instance the holder or spindle interfering with the part or that you get to much vibration in thin walled parts while machining.
Here is a video illustrating some of the challenges with milling complex parts and interference.
This is 60kg titanium turned into 1.9kg part, such huge differentials between the starting material and finished part is very common in aircraft structural parts.
Click to expand...
Actually if you follow 3D printing R&D literature material strengths have been converging onto traditional techniques.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
manqiangrexue said:
And I absolutely fully support enhancing production methods for any benefit, but clearly, the added strength and reduced weight are the goal, and any cost savings are a small bonus. But you guys were talking about melting titanium shavings. That's a traditional method before the 3D printing method, right? How much could you possibly save melting metal shavings compared to the >$100M price tag of a J-20??
Click to expand...

If you add in other manufacturing and supply line efficiencies, as well as economy of scale, then reduction of individual unit cost can certainly drop by a few percentage points or more, and if that is extrapolated to a large triple digit or even low four digit production run, that's a fair bit of money saved.

The whole point of mass producing an aircraft like J-20 is that its unit/procurement cost should be reduced to begin with (in fact I am never sure if it was ever at $100 million to begin with)


Ultimately reducing cost and improving performance are not necessarily oppositional to one another.
 
M

mack8

Junior Member
I don't know one bit of mandarin, but did one of CAC guys said "stop filming" when the primer one was passing and the guy filming quickly put his camera down?:D
 
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