Laser metal deposition of bionic aluminum supports

Additively manufactured components made of metallic material are subject to special consideration for many R&D departments, since the process control is not yet sufficiently reliable and therefore an extensive quality assurance is necessary. For this reason, few structural components for aviation have been established so far. In this paper, a feasibility study for the use of laser metal deposition (LMD) for the additive manufacturing of a fuselage made of aluminum is carried out. The result is a parameter set with a minimized energy input. However, due to a welding length of 58 m the overall energy input is high and large distortion arises.