Sensible Erection | 3D printed planes by 2050

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

3D printed planes by 2050

quote [ An Airbus designer is drawing up plans to create a plane from a 3D printer the size of an aircraft hanger by 2050.

Airbus employee Bastian Schafer envisions an 80-metre-long aircraft with a curved body made from transparent material, so passengers feel as though they're flying among the clouds, reports Forbes. ]

If you thought inkjet cartridges were expensive.....

Oh, & a whole lot of fuck that to flying in a transparent aircraft....

[sci&tech] [by rangerx@5:53pmGMT] [+6]

Comments

spite48 said @ 6:00pm GMT on 31st Jul [Score:4 Insightful]
Flying in a transparent aircraft might seem like fun until every passenger craps their pants in a thunderstorm.

Ubie said @ 6:12pm GMT on 31st Jul
Transparent planes just seem like they'd be a bitch to keep clean. I have enough trouble with my car's windshield, let alone a whole damn plane.

buckaroo50 said @ 6:42pm GMT on 31st Jul
"Airbus proposed the concept of a 2050 self-cleaning aircraft..."

graham said @ 9:00pm GMT on 31st Jul [Score:5 Funny]
"Quick! Fly through the rain!"

sanepride said @ 6:26pm GMT on 31st Jul
Considering the pace of 3D printing technology, coupled with the obvious profit motive for developing and expanding it, 38 years seems like an easy mark. I'd venture to predict that much of our manufacturing industry would rely on some form of 3D printing on all scales by then. Really the biggest obstacle is societal- convincing the legions of workers that their services will no longer be needed.

GordonGuano said @ 7:06pm GMT on 31st Jul
There's the rub. We can take care of the material needs of the populace, but hardly anybody will have a job to be able to earn a living. We're just entering that bottleneck now, barring Malthusian catastrophe.

lilmookieesquire said @ 7:30pm GMT on 31st Jul
Given that we now live in a paperless world and robots do all our work, I fully agree.

ahPook said @ 7:41pm GMT on 31st Jul
Not to mention the jetpacks.

lilmookieesquire said @ 8:05pm GMT on 31st Jul
Call me old fashioned, but I prefer my hovercar.

Naruki said @ 12:14am GMT on 1st Aug
You are thinking like a capitalist.

GordonGuano said @ 1:01am GMT on 1st Aug
I'd love to try something different, but it's pretty much the unofficial state religion.

Naruki said @ 3:13am GMT on 1st Aug
Wasn't always, won't always be.

GordonGuano said @ 12:48pm GMT on 1st Aug
From your keyboard to FSM's ears.

Joe_Luma said @ 1:44am GMT on 1st Aug [Score:1 Insightful]
If all our material needs are taken care of... what sort of living do you picture people needing to 'earn'?

GordonGuano said @ 1:59am GMT on 1st Aug
Vonnegut's Player Piano is the best-case scenario, I fear. I'm envisioning 60% unemployment with a tiny sliver of middle class wondering why them layabouts don't get any jerbs. Investing in education or portioning out consumer goods in a rational way just ain't the American Way, don'cher know.

On the bright side, it'll be a moot point once oil/gallium/phosphorus shortages have reduced us to a new Steam Age.

mechanical contrivance said @ 2:51am GMT on 1st Aug
Steampunk will become real.

chold_numa said @ 3:33am GMT on 1st Aug
Until we run out of coal. Then we'll have a post-Steampunk society. I call it Waterworld.

captainstubing said @ 9:43am GMT on 1st Aug
Services? Like most of us already do...

HoZay said @ 7:09pm GMT on 31st Jul [Score:2 Funny]
Displaced workers can be retrained to meet future demands - 3D printer repair, grief counselors, prison guards.

lilmookieesquire said @ 7:29pm GMT on 31st Jul [Score:2]
That's what the ebola is for.

cb361 said @ 8:59pm GMT on 31st Jul
You wouldn't download an aeroplane!

EPT said @ 4:29am GMT on 1st Aug
Well, I might, but I wouldn't have anywhere to print it out...

cb361 said @ 11:09am GMT on 1st Aug
You wouldn't download a 3D printer.

pleaides said @ 1:37pm GMT on 1st Aug [Score:1 Funny]
I'd totally remilitarize the Rhineland though.

cb361 said @ 2:56pm GMT on 1st Aug
That's okay, just keep away from intellectual property theft, which is worse than heroin, murder and wasps all rolled into one.

swiggy said @ 3:16pm GMT on 1st Aug
Heroin-fueled murderwasps.

spite48 said @ 3:50pm GMT on 1st Aug
Stop peeking into my secret laboratory.

sherlock said @ 9:29pm GMT on 31st Jul
"convincing the legions of workers that their services will no longer be needed"

Damn straight. It's been, what, 70 years since the first digital computer was invented, and my University *still* has gigantic halls of people calculating on slide rules around the clock to fulfill the computational requirements of the physics department.

GordonGuano said @ 9:39pm GMT on 31st Jul
There will always be work that needs done, but getting paid to do it is getting trickier.

eIfish said @ 9:34pm GMT on 31st Jul
This is kind of America's big chance here.

I'm sure they'd have no problem with informing legions of Chinese workers in China that their services are no-longer needed. And it might actually create some jobs maintaining 3d printers.

sanepride said @ 11:42pm GMT on 31st Jul
Very possibly, except that pretty much all of our aircraft are made in the US by US workers.

eIfish said @ 11:58pm GMT on 31st Jul
There's no reason the same techniques couldn't be applied to your cars, phones, computers, toys, ships, heavy plant, and white goods.

Naruki said @ 12:15am GMT on 1st Aug
Seems a little racist, there.

HoZay said @ 1:59am GMT on 1st Aug
I don't see goods color.

mechanical contrivance said @ 2:56am GMT on 1st Aug
Beige.

lilmookieesquire said @ 6:48pm GMT on 31st Jul
Transparent planes would be fucking terrifying in a storm.

arrowhen said @ 7:04pm GMT on 31st Jul [Score:5 Funny]
You spelled "awesome" wrong. :P

marshakyuss said @ 8:37pm GMT on 31st Jul
how would anyone get any sleep?

rangerx said @ 8:39pm GMT on 31st Jul [Score:2 Funny]
I know, the screaming, right?

maryyugo said @ 8:44pm GMT on 31st Jul [Score:1 Funny]
Transparent is nice. You can watch all the nice plastic parts as they stress, stretch and break in a storm.

ahPook said @ 9:29pm GMT on 31st Jul [Score:5 Funny]

eIfish said @ 9:30pm GMT on 31st Jul
Hobbyist builds working assault rifle(sic) using 3D printer.

While the journalism is on-par with tabloid science, it's still correct about guy with 3d printer circumvents US firearm registration laws.

For the record:
- an AR-15 is a semiautomatic rifle, firing once for each pull of the trigger, and therefore not an "assault rifle"
- M16/M4 trigger groups are keyed to prevent them from being put into AR-15 lower receivers, so an AR-15 lower receiver cannot be used with M16/M4 parts to construct a fully-automatic assault rifle.
- Under US law, there are licensing and record-keeping requirements over the transfer of lower receivers, not their construction*. While the article strongly implies that he broke the law, the constructor actually didn't.

* 'helping' someone build one counts as you and him transferring it back and forth several times

Didel said @ 4:15am GMT on 1st Aug
Just to add some information....

Depending on the state you're in, many states will allow you to produce your own firearm and there is no real paperwork involved. But you're not allowed to make them and sell them to others. But they're fine for personal use.

And never mind that the lower receiver of the AR15 is about the most useless part of the entire gun, it merely holds all the important pieces together, (ie, it's not the actual barrel and chamber where the very high pressure is or from which the bullet is fired, it's not the bolt that actually fires the gun, nor the gas system that has to withstand high pressure and heat to make the gun semi auto. This doesn't even include the trigger group. So it's not like the lower has to be made of any high strength material. It just holds the magazine and the trigger group and gives the upper part with the bolt and barrel a place to connect to the handle. It's also not even close to being the first AR15 lower that has been made out of plastic. I've always been tempted to make one out of hundreds of sheets of paper that have been glued together.

But the article is from the register, so of course it's over blown.

The file for the AR15 lowers to be printed on RepRaps has been on thingaverse for a few months now.

Also, you can already buy "80%" AR lower's that have been machined to "80%" of completion, with the end user just finishing up the milling and drilling. It's not completely simple, but neither is it too difficult if you have access to a mill or even a drill press and know what you're doing.

The keying of the AR15/M16 is kind of a grey area though. Yes, some AR15 lower receivers have a higher shelf that will disallow the use of a full auto group, but that shelf is easily milled out with a $100 drill press, and it's quite easy now to get full auto bolt carriers and such. More manufacturers are also making low shelf lowers, which not all of them will allow for drop in auto sears, but many more will now than did 10 years ago. Of course, the tiny little piece of metal (A drop in auto sears, there are others ways to turn a AR into a full auto, this is just one example and a popular one) that makes it (legally) a full auto gun will cost you $15,000 plus a $200 tax to the government, but in reality would cost about $20 for one to be manufactured in a machine shop. But he's right in that you can't just buy m16 parts in an ar15 and have a full auto gun.

eIfish said @ 9:43pm GMT on 31st Jul

Also from a wee while back, Free, Universal, Construction Kit, a downloadable set of 3d-printable adapters allows interoperability between Lego, K’Nex, Fischertechnik, and others.

RhesusMonkey said @ 1:47am GMT on 1st Aug
TinkerToy + LEGO == MIND BLOWN!!!

Barnabas_Truman said @ 4:23am GMT on 1st Aug
As far as I can tell, TinkerToys have been discontinued and the parent company is transitioning to an all-plastic replacement that looks more like TinkerToy-shaped K'Nex. I can't find TinkerToys for sale ANYWHERE right now. Even Target doesn't have them.

Which is really too bad, because I think they'd be perfect for building frameworks to hold together demonstration circuits for my physics classes.

-_- said @ 11:13am GMT on 1st Aug
Here you go ;D

-_- said @ 11:14am GMT on 1st Aug
um ... Here?

SnappyNipples said @ 11:30pm GMT on 31st Jul [Score:3]
pfffft... as an aircraft mech I know this does nothing but add to job securtiy. Composite parts on aircraft require extra inspections with very close tolerances to be met than standard metal parts. When most composites fail they fail with little warning and explosively. When the wing, fuselage, or other large part is printed out it will still require so much work to it before its ready for use like for starters: curing the part in an autoclave, inspecting the part for voids, *voids in fabrication when curing is the deal breaker with these composite parts* adding the countless fittings, cable guides, sealants, wiring/ plumbing, countless amounts of inspections/QC performed on the part while being built up. And these nutters at airbus want to make an invisible jet? lulz... Perhaps they should wait until the puppeteers get to earth and order some General Products type #2 hulls.

eIfish said @ 11:55pm GMT on 31st Jul
Not convinced:

If you've got a robot literally poring over every cubic millimeter of the plane in order to print it out, surely it can inspect and fit it out as it goes? It's certainly not a stretch to imagine that a hangar that large and that expensive might contain other robots to do other tedious tasks.

I don't think you're thinking long-term enough. The shearmen also thought their job was so skilled, so difficult that there could never be a machine that did it.

Didel said @ 1:07am GMT on 1st Aug
The thing with an airplane, you don't just build it and say "that's perfect, job done." No, you have to inspect it all the time and reinspect it. And he's right, most composites when they do fail, thy fail poorly. Which means that testing is necessary, and the testing procedures are usually more involved.

The other thing is, what I'll call additive manufacturing processes (versus your typical subtractive processes, like taking a piece of material and whittling down to the right part) are pretty awesome and we're definitely getting there in terms of manufacturing, but they're still very very expensive and very slow, never mind the precision necessary isn't quite there (in a commercial capacity) nor are their ability to handle the materials necessary for airplanes. Also, one of the cool things about additive processes is to create all in one items. For example, think of a sphere trapped in a open cube, something you can't do with typical manufacturing, but something you can do with additive processes. But for many things, that's not necessary, is actually some times more expensive (as when one part breaks, the whole thing needs to be tossed), more difficult to inspect, more difficult to repair. Of course there are benefits as well. But the point is, you don't just go and print a giant plane with one gigantic printer, you're going to print the parts and put it all together.

So yes, one day we'll probably have planes that are mostly made through the additive process, but by 2050, made out of transparent material? No. 3d printing has come a long way in the past 10 years, but it's basically at the level of a early Ford Model T, with a long way to go before it becomes the super technology that some of it's proponents make it out to be. Call me when printers can adequately print carbon nanotubes without hours of clean up time and hand finishing.

All that said, I love 3d printers. But again, they have a loooong way to go. It's just cheaper to CNC aluminum parts, injection mold plastics, and lay up carbon fiber panels than to print out individual pieces on a 3d printer/additive process.

SnappyNipples said @ 9:54am GMT on 2nd Aug
I'm thinking that you are thinking too far into the future in like a science fiction future, and have oversimplified the skills of an aviation tech. The day you don't need an aviation tech you are flying things that don't follow any known physics of flight, airframe structure, or propulsion. I will rue that day over your analogy of the sheep shearer as a long time dead dessicated corps in some forgotten grave. =p

eIfish said @ 11:35am GMT on 2nd Aug
The shearsman was a highly skilled worker in textile production. He used a massive pair of shears to trim the nap of the cloth, producing a smooth finish. It was highly-skilled work, cutting less than a millimetre above, but never through, the cloth with a great potential for ruining the cloth if it was done wrong.

Turns out it was possible to make a machine that could do it cheaper, and more accurately. The shearsmen were one of the last skilled trades to go in the industrial revolution, and as they saw everyone else get replaced, they stood back and did nothing, because they thought the same thing could never happen to them.

SnappyNipples said @ 6:06am GMT on 3rd Aug
Well hell, that doesn't even help your point. It is obvious that the shearsman is a one trick pony. The FAA licensed aviation tech is authorized to work on aircraft spanning the wright flier to the space shuttle. Honestly when all the rocket science is done in the design of an aircraft it is the skilled hands of the aviation tech to construct it. In fact there are over 60 disciplines to master just to get the basic ticket. The article in question only offers an addition to the airframe discipline and it doesn't make the current tech at all obsolete. No, I still think I'll be very long dead before my job disappears.

EPT said @ 4:28am GMT on 1st Aug
The Hindmost is one of my favourite character concepts in fiction.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 7:49pm GMT on 2nd Aug
Have you ever played Star Control? There is a race of alien snail-things called the Spathi that are very much a Puppeteer shout-out: their entire schtick is cowardice, the main weapon on their spaceships is rear-pointing, and their ruling class is called the Safe Ones.

spite48 said @ 8:17pm GMT on 2nd Aug
I love both spathi and puppeteers.

The spathi as a race are hilarious. Their default mental state is terror and they have a vivid imagination with respect to unknown monsters and threats. They excel at surrendering, hiding and fleeing.

-_- said @ 11:45am GMT on 1st Aug
There are 3d printers that print in metal and ceramic right now, in 38yrs I won't be surprised if I can buy a printer that prints in diamond.

And ... Making diamonds with a blowtorch.
38yrs, that's a "generation" away.
Yeah, I'll be more surprised if we aren't printing 3d shapes out of diamond by then.

buckaroo50 said @ 11:39pm GMT on 31st Jul [Score:2 Good]

3d printed models including joints calculated from object skin mesh.

danshyu said @ 12:14am GMT on 1st Aug
Even if it is as strong or stronger as traditional materials. I still dunno if I want to fly in a transparent plane. Consider the fact the jetliners fly above the clouds, wouldn't this turn the whole plane into a flying green house?

GordonGuano said @ 12:59am GMT on 1st Aug
Not to mention the difficulties already inherent in joining the Mile-High Club.

RhesusMonkey said @ 1:49am GMT on 1st Aug
Just think of them as really, really big windows... with no way to close them to the light. Should make for those trans-oceanic flights a very pleasant experience, no? Who needs darkness to sleep these days?

Archy said @ 4:56am GMT on 1st Aug
So we can print organs, toys, planes, etc...why can't we print food?

sanepride said @ 5:42am GMT on 1st Aug
We can't actually print organs yet. But when we can, of course they can be food.

EPT said @ 6:37am GMT on 1st Aug
In polite discourse, anything to do with your organ is unprintable.

-_- said @ 11:21am GMT on 1st Aug

And.

backSLIDER said @ 8:47am GMT on 1st Aug
There is a food printer,,, well it's more of a condiment printer. it's a burrito printer but you have to fold the burrito when you are done so it's more of a crappy nacho printer.

-_- said @ 11:18am GMT on 1st Aug
Here.