CIDETEC SURFACE ENGINEERING APPLIES CHEMICAL POLISHING TO EXCEED THE LIMITS OF ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING IN AEROSPACE PARTS

The AMANECO project is investigating a process to reduce roughness on aircraft heat exchangers, whose complex geometry is not accessible via mechanical methods.

The aeronautical industry has always been defined by its high-quality standards, as one of the sectors that has been most committed to the possibilities offered by additive manufacturing (AM), solving challenges that traditional methods could not cover.

In this sense, the AMANECO project is developing AM heat exchangers, opening up a new horizon of possibilities in terms of shape, weight and efficiency, making it possible to reduce aircraft costs as well as their consumption.

The geometrical complexity of the exchangers and their difficult accessibility in certain areas of the part means that, once manufactured, it is not feasible to reduce their surface roughness via mechanical polishing processes or electrochemical methods. To overcome this difficulty, CIDETEC Surface Engineering is developing a chemical post-processing method for surface improvement, valid for parts with internal channels and thin walls manufactured by AM.

The project, coordinated by Lortek, is part of the Clean Sky 2 framework and has been conceived under the supervision of the company SAFRAN, and is expected to be completed in 2022.