Boeing manages to build 144 of its 787 Dreamliner commercial aircraft every year. Each one costs $265 million, with $17 million of that going on strong and lightweight titanium alloy components required to support the carbon fiber fuselage and wings. However, thanks to Norsk Titanium, the Dreamliner is about to get cheaper, saving Boeing as much as $3 million per plane.
Yesterday, Norsk Titanium delivered the world's first FAA-approved 3D printed, structural titanium component. These components use Norsk's Rapid Plasma Deposition (RPD) process, and the results are thanks to a close collaboration with Boeing who designed the parts for use in the Dreamliner.
As reported by Reuters, Norsk's Chip Yates, vice president of marketing, claims the switch to 3D printed titanium parts, "means $2 million to $3 million in savings for each Dreamliner, at least."
If the $3 million saving is realized, it scales up to a cost reduction of $432 million every year based on current production numbers. Seeing as the Dreamliner only started generating a profit for Boeing last year and already cost the company around $29 billion in "production-related losses," this is surely welcome news.
Norsk Titanium President & Chief Executive Officer Warren M. Boley, Jr. commented that, "The Norsk Titanium team will continue to expand the portfolio of components supplied to Boeing meeting stringent certification requirements." That suggests this could just be the start of the cost savings brought about by replacing traditional and expensive manufacturing with significantly cheaper and faster 3D printing.