Aerospace industry

Additive Manufacturing in the Aerospace Industry

Produce complex, lightweight, and high-performance aerospace components on demand using additive manufacturing. This enables advanced designs, improved fuel efficiency, and engineering solutions that are not achievable with traditional methods.

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Additive Manufacturing in the Aerospace Industry

Challenges

What does the aerospace industry demand – and what is our solution

Lightweight Design

Lightweight 3D-printed components play a critical role in aerospace, as even minimal weight reductions deliver measurable benefits in fuel efficiency, payload capacity, and overall costs. Additive manufacturing enables engineers to create highly optimized structures with tailored load paths, lattice architectures, and complex internal geometries that maximize strength and stiffness while minimizing material usage. This allows aircraft and spacecraft components to meet the industry's stringent mechanical, safety, and certification requirements without carrying unnecessary mass, contributing to higher performance and improved sustainability across aerospace platforms.

Complex Geometries and Customization

Components in aerospace often require sophisticated designs such as lattice structures, internal channels, and topology-optimized shapes. 3D printing enables engineers to produce these complex geometries as a single part, which would be difficult or impossible with conventional machining or casting processes. Internal cooling channels, hollow sections, and organic shapes can be printed directly without requiring multiple parts or assembly. This reduces part count, minimizes joints and fasteners, and improves structural integrity while simultaneously reducing overall weight – a critical factor in aerospace.

Mechanical Strength and Reliability

3D-printed components used in aerospace are characterized by high mechanical strength and reliability when manufactured under controlled conditions. The layer-by-layer manufacturing process enables precise control of material distribution, resulting in components with high structural integrity and optimized load-bearing capacity. Material properties such as tensile strength, fatigue resistance, and fracture toughness can be adjusted through process parameters and post-processing, ensuring that components meet the stringent requirements of the aerospace industry.

Environmental Control and Equipment Calibration

3D printing can significantly enhance environmental control, equipment calibration, and the assurance of structural integrity in aerospace. By producing complex components with high precision directly from digital designs, 3D printing reduces dependence on extensive manual machining and assembly, thereby lowering the risk of contamination in cleanroom environments. Components can be printed to tight tolerances, supporting consistent calibration and reducing the frequency of equipment adjustments.

End-Use Flight Parts

Stratasys® ULTEM™ 9085 aerospace filaments are manufactured to strict aerospace specifications and offer complete production traceability. The Stratasys® Aircraft Interiors Certification provides guidelines for the design and manufacture of aircraft interior components that comply with FAA and EASA standards, using FDM-certified ULTEM™ 9085.

ULTEM™ 9085 is a high-performance polyetherimide (PEI) thermoplastic specifically developed for applications requiring high heat resistance, high mechanical strength, and exceptional dimensional stability. This makes it ideal for certified, functional aerospace interior parts. The material has a high processing temperature of approximately 295 °C and can be used in demanding high-temperature environments.

Due to its high tensile strength and stiffness, this material is optimally suited for load-bearing components in the aerospace industry.

Properties

Tensile strength: 69 MPa (9,950 psi)
Heat deflection temperature (HDT): 153 °C (307 °F)
Fire rating: UL 94-V0 (certified for flame, smoke and toxicity/FST)

Use cases

Seat brackets
Panels
Air ducts
Advanced functional prototypes

End-Use Flight Parts

Antero® 800NA is a PEKK-based FDM® thermoplastic with excellent mechanical properties, including high strength, heat resistance, toughness, and wear resistance. The heat deflection temperature (HDT) is 147 °C at 1.82 MPa (264 psi) and 150 °C at 0.45 MPa (66 psi), making it suitable for applications that require mechanical stability at elevated temperatures.

Properties

Tensile strength: 93 MPa (XZ-axis)
Heat deflection temperature (HDT): 150 °C at 0.45 MPa (66 psi)
Notched impact strength (Izod, notched): 37 J/m (XZ-axis)

Use cases

Tooling and fixtures for composite layups
High-strength, dimensionally stable mounting and support structures for avionics, sensors, and antennas
Satellite and spacecraft components that meet stringent ultra-low outgassing requirements to prevent contamination of optics, sensors, and sensitive surfaces in vacuum environments

Carbon Fiber Layup Tooling

ULTEM™ 1010 is a high-performance Polyetherimide (PEI) thermoplastic widely used in aerospace for carbon fiber layup tooling, thanks to its exceptional thermal stability, mechanical strength, and dimensional accuracy. It offers a continuous service temperature of up to 200 °C, making it suitable for autoclave cycles in carbon fiber layups. The material demonstrates excellent thermal and mechanical performance, with a heat deflection temperature (HDT) of 213–216 °C (at 0.45–1.82 MPa), allowing it to maintain dimensional stability under high-temperature conditions.

Properties

Tensile strength: 64 MPa (XZ-direction) / 42 MPa (ZX-direction)
Elongation at break: 1.1–4.0%
Heat deflection temperature (HDT) @ 0.45 MPa (66 psi): 216 °C

Use cases

Drilling, trimming, and inspection fixtures
Prototypes and functional test parts
Autoclavable molds and mandrels

Fixtures and Brackets

Nylon 12 CF by Stratasys® is a carbon fiber-reinforced Nylon 12 thermoplastic for FDM 3D printing that offers an exceptional strength-to-weight ratio, making it ideally suited for demanding aerospace applications such as fixtures and tooling. The material achieves the highest flexural strength among Stratasys® FDM materials at 142 MPa (22,200 psi), offering superior stiffness and a heat deflection temperature (HDT) of 153.7 °C at 24 psi (0.16 MPa). The carbon fiber content of 35% by weight increases dimensional stability, impact resistance (106 J/m notched IZOD) and chemical resistance, ensuring reliable performance under repeated use in aerospace environments. These properties enable the production of conformal fixtures for flexible components, such as sheet metal assemblies, while maintaining precision for drill guides and other tooling. In aerospace applications, Nylon 12 CF can replace metal in fixtures and tooling, offering a high stiffness-to-weight ratio that reduces component weight without compromising durability.