Etihad Airways Engineering, which offers aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul serviceshas teamed up with German 3D printer manufacturer BigRep to develop new additive manufacturing solutions for manufacturing interior cabin parts for airliners.
Berhard Randerath, Vice President Engineering, Design & Innovation at Etihad Airways Engineering, explained: “Etihad Airways Engineering and BigRep share a vision to bring the 3D-printed cabin into production, together with our partners. Our goal is to enable 3D-printing technologies for cabin parts – be it on new aircraft programmes or for retrofit installations – to serve our airline customers with innovative and smart solutions.”
One of the main problems the two companies will have to address is the need for more polymer materials suitable for 3D printing that can pass the EASA and FAA aerospace certification process.
Stephan Beyer, interim CEO & CFO of BigRep, added: “We believe that we offer the best additive manufacturing solutions today with our BigRep equipment, but to unfold the full potential of our technology for the aerospace sector, we have to jointly certify new aviation materials and establish specific AM design and engineering guidelines in parallel.”
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