Boston-based ultra-quiet vertical flight system developer MagLev Aero has chosen 3D printing OEM GE Additive’s AddWorks consultancy group to offer help on additive applied sciences and supplies. Addwork’s 3D printing experience can be used to develop Meglev Aero’s proprietary MagLev HyperDrive aero propulsion platform for electrical vertical take-off and touchdown (eVTOL) plane.
GE Additive is likely one of the first corporations publicly introduced supporting MagLev Aero. It’s mentioned that this partnership will drive the potential of additive manufacturing to unlock a brand new era of eVTOL plane designs that obtain ultra-low noise operation.
Guaranteeing low-noise operation throughout high-altitude cruising and, most significantly, take-offs and landings is important to attaining neighborhood acceptance from most people and widespread accessibility.
“The MagLev HyperDrive platform represents a transformative step in vertical carry effectivity and plane design,” commented Rod Randall, MagLev Aero’s Co-Founder and Chairman. “By working with AddWorks’ world-class consultants and engineers, we’re leveraging superior applied sciences and supplies to realize optimum energy and stiffness on the lightest weight on our mission to open up ultraquiet electrical air mobility to the plenty.”
MaglevAero is in talks with different main OEMs to additional develop their providing and has acquired backing from a number of know-how buyers. These embody Breakthrough Power Ventures, Materials Influence, Stage 1 Ventures, Grit Capital, and Moai Capital. As of June 2023, the corporate has raised roughly $11.8 million USD.
MagLev Aero’s Hyperdrive system
The primary era of eVTOLs has already succeeded within the aviation business, making City Air Mobility (UAM) extra viable. Nonetheless, the business is but to resolve the important, real-world problem of take-off and touchdown noise.
That is the place MagLev Aero’s Hyperdrive system is available in. The corporate claims that its know-how represents the subsequent era of electrical, ultraquiet, high-performance, and protected vertical carry propulsion vital for accessible clear power flights.
MagLev Aero’s Hyperdrive system consists of a big rim-driven round rotor with a magnetic bearing supporting a many-bladed rim. The HyperDrive employs the identical magnetic levitation rules utilized in ultrafast, ultraquiet, high-efficiency maglev trains. This maximizes effectivity and management for ultra-quiet vertical carry and high-speed cruise.
Everlasting magnets within the passive electrodynamic suspension are mixed with segmented motor management. This allows redundant and environment friendly distributed electrical propulsion across the perimeter of the rim drive. In the end, this permits the MagLev HyperDrive to securely obtain excessive hover carry effectivity with decrease tip speeds and blade loading, decreasing noise ranges throughout hover. MagLev claims that this surpasses the know-how supplied by conventional helicopters and multi-rotor eVTOLs.
In response to MagLev Aero, its propulsion-first enterprise mannequin permits the HyperDrive platform to be built-in into completely different OEMs’ plane ideas and eVTOLs. This facilitates industrial design parts and use circumstances that will be not possible with conventional rotor know-how.
Aviation and additive manufacturing
Apart from Maglev Aero, additive know-how has been closely leveraged within the aviation business. Final yr, industrial metallic 3D printer producer AddUp and French aerospace firm Dassault Aviation partnered to push metallic 3D printing processes from “prototyping” to “mass manufacturing” for aeronautics.
As a part of Dassault’s “AEROPRINT” R&D mission, AddUp is working to create a novel manufacturing system primarily based on interoperability and course of automation. The intention is to allocate the gear while additionally making certain the right isolation and circulation of the 2 chosen supplies. Due to this fact, AddUp consultants are reportedly growing a brand new closed enclosure that enables the powder to enter on one aspect whereas a tray of metallic components exits on the opposite.
Elsewhere, multinational aviation part supplier GE Aviation turned the primary firm to supply metallic additive manufacturing for industrial jet engine part repairs final yr. The corporate’s Loyang facility in Singapore turned the world’s first upkeep, restore, and overhaul (MRO) facility to be permitted to make use of 3D printing for this objective. It’s mentioned that this can permit for faster turnaround instances while providing sustainability advantages.
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Featured picture exhibits a top-down view of the MagLev HyperDrive aero propulsion platform. Photograph by way of MagLev Aero.
