A multi-engine, instrument rated pilot, James Wynbrandt has been an AIN and Business Jet Traveler contributor since 2003. His in-depth reporting and insightful features have won more than a dozen editorial honors, including two National Business Aviation Association Gold Wing Awards (2019; 2021), and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Barron’s, Fortune, Forbes, and Smithsonian Air &amp; Space. He has flown his Mooney M20K 252 on assignments throughout North and Central America and the Caribbean. Wynbrandt is also the author of Flying High (Wiley &amp; Sons), a biography of Jet Blue founder David Neeleman, as well as histories, references works, and books on a variety of other topics from major publishers. He lives in New York City.

Contributor - Business Aviation

James Wynbrandt

Stelia Aerospace of Toulouse, France, unveiled a demonstrator prototype part for metallic self-reinforced fuselage panels, fabricated with stiffeners made by additive manufacturing (aka 3D printing). The one-meter-square panel was produced by a robotic tool through the deposit of aluminum wire merged by electric arc, known as Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing.

 


Currently, stiffeners are attached to fuselage panels with fixing screws or by welding. The new additive manufacturing process could simplify production of such parts to a one-step process, cutting required time, materials, weight, and costs. Stelia designs and manufactures fuselage sections for the entire Airbus family and Bombardier’s Global 7000; complex metallic and composite aerostructure parts for Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer and Northrop-Grumman; and wings for ATR.

 


The demonstrator is an outgrowth of a topological optimization research initiative Stelia launched in 2014 with engineering group CT Ingénierie aimed at creating 3D print demonstrators for “very large structural parts derived from new calculation methods,” said Cédric Gautier, CEO of Stelia Aerospace. The elementary parts include fittings and large-dimension frames and subassemblies.

 


Aluminum specialist Constellium and the engineering school Ecole Centrale de Nantes are also involved in the project, co-financed (50/50) by the partners and the French Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGAC).

Stelia Intros 3D Printed Fuselage Panel Demonstrator

The demonstrator is the product of a initiative launched in 2014.

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