Case Study: Aeroswift achieves unprecedented large-scale, topology-optimized metal 3D printing with Altair Inspire (Altair)

Aeroswift - Customer Case Study

Aeroswift, a South African large-format metal additive manufacturing project led by Aerosud and the CSIR, set out to demonstrate and commercialize very large metal 3D-printed aerospace components. The challenge was to design and print a titanium UAV frame on the Aeroswift powder-bed fusion printer—exploiting its unprecedented build volume and high throughput—while improving the buy-to-fly ratio, reducing development time and waste, and meeting strict flight, stiffness and manufacturability requirements. To address this, Aeroswift partnered with Altair and used Altair Inspire for the design effort.

Altair delivered a multi-step topology-optimization workflow using Altair Inspire to generate a print-ready Ti6Al4V UAV frame that leveraged the Aeroswift machine’s size and speed. The optimized design met or exceeded flight-time and thrust-to-weight targets, reduced part count and material waste, shortened development time, and improved the buy-to-fly ratio—demonstrating measurable process and performance gains and outperforming the benchmark results thanks to Altair’s tools.

Aeroswift

Jacobus Prinsloo

Operations Manager