COVER STORY | GENERATIVE DESIGN
THE GENERATIVELY Airbus has moved from developing components for the
Four years ago, Airbus used
generative design to create
a partition that separates
the cabin and the galley in
its aircraft that was half the weight
of the one it replaced. This could,
potentially, save around half a
million tons of CO2 a year if rolled
out across all A320 planes.
Generative design creates
thousands of design options
that eventually lead to the
lightest, strongest singlepart
components that
are made using the least
materials possible.
Bastian Schaefer,
“We managed
to reduce the
distance of the key
travel paths while also
minimising congestion
and bottlenecks.”
ANDREW ANAGNOST
innovation manager at
Airbus, says: “We’ve been
using metal 3D printing
with an aerospace material
called Scalmalloy to create a
full-scale partition which is almost
50% lighter than the existing design.
This component has been tested
successfully, it’s not flying yet, but
it has taken the first steps towards
certification.”
A revised version of this partition,
‘Bionic Partition 2.0’, is being
built, originally the intention
was to fabricate the new
partition using metal additive
manufacturing. But, due
to a range of variables
in the manufacturing
market and materials
requirements, it
became clear
cabins of its aircraft interiors, to exterior components
and even the factories in which these components are
built. Tom Austin-Morgan reports.
that an alternative fabrication
process would be necessary.
Autodesk’s generative
design technology has
continued to mature
and is now capable of
optimising for multiple
advanced manufacturing techniques
during the design phase of product
develo-pment.
This meant Airbus could use
generative design to create a
plastic, 3D-printed mould for the
partition, and then cast the part in
an alloy that’s already qualified for
flight. Bionic partition 2.0 is just
as strong and light as its
predecessor and
14 WWW.EUREKAMAGAZINE.CO.UK | JANUARY 2020
/WWW.EUREKAMAGAZINE.CO.UK