SCIENTISTS from the University of Southampton have made headlines around the globe after designing and flying the world’s first printed aircraft.
The plane, which has a two-metre wingspan and a top speed of 100 miles per hour, was produced using a special nylon laser printer which fabricates plastic or metal objects to build up an item layer by layer.
No fasteners were used and all equipment was attached using ‘snap fit’ techniques, which meant the aircraft could be put together without tools in minutes.
The breakthrough by the team of engineers from the University’s Computational Engineering and Design Research group could now revolutionise aircraft manufacture.
Unmanned and electrically powered, the plane can cruise in near silence and is also equipped with a miniature autopilot system developed by Dr Matt Bennett, one of the members of the team.
The special production process used by the team is known as ‘laser sintering’ which allows the designer to create shapes and structures that would normally involve costly traditional manufacturing techniques.
This technology allows a highly- tailored aircraft to be developed from concept to first flight in days.
Using conventional materials and manufacturing techniques would normally take months.
And because no tooling is required for manufacture, radical changes to the shape and scale of the aircraft can be made with no extra cost.
Professor Scanlon, who led the team with Professor Andy Keane, said: “The flexibility of the laser sintering process allows the design team to revisit historical techniques and ideas that would have been prohibitively expensive using conventional manufacturing.
He said one such structure studied by the team was initially developed by Barnes Wallis and famously used on the Vickers Wellington bomber which first flew in 1936.
“This form of structure is very stiff and lightweight, but very complex.
“If it was manufactured conventionally it would require a large number of individually tailored parts that would have to be bonded or fastened at great expense.”
The new printed plane is known as the Southampton University Laser Sintered Aircraft - or SULSA for short – and is part of a wider project using leading-edge manufacturing techniques.
The University of Southampton has been at the forefront of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle development since the early 1990s.
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