Boeing (the world’s largest aerospace company) and Oerlikon (a leading technology and engineering group) have signed a five-year collaboration agreement to develop standard materials and processes for metal-based additive manufacturing.

Boeing (www.boeing.com)chief technologist Leo Christodoulou said: “This agreement is an important step towards fully unlocking the value of powder-bed titanium additive manufacturing for the aerospace industry.

"Boeing and Oerlikon will work together to standardise additive-manufacturing operations from powder management to finished product and thus enable the development of a wide range of safe, reliable and cost-effective structural titanium aerospace components.”

Roland Fischer, Oerlikon Group CEO (www.oerlikon.com), said: “This program will drive the faster adoption of additive manufacturing in the rapidly growing aerospace, space and defence markets. We see collaboration as a key enabler to unlocking the value that additive manufacturing can bring to aircraft platforms.”

Boeing and Oerlikon will use the data from this collaboration to support the qualification of additive-manufacturing suppliers to produce metallic components using a variety of machines and materials.

The research will initially focus on industrialising titanium powder-bed fusion additive manufacturing and ensuring that parts made with this process meet the flight requirements of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of Defense.

Boeing has been researching and implementing additive manufacturing in the aerospace industry for some 20 years; it currently has about 50,000 3-D printed parts flying on commercial, space and defence programmes.

Last year, Boeing became the first aerospace manufacturer to design and install an FAA-qualified 3-D printed structural titanium part on a commercial airplane — the 787 Dreamliner.