Case Study: Bell Helicopter achieves rapid, flight-ready wiring prototypes with Stratasys FDM

FDM Helps Bell Helicopter Build Quality Prototypes

Bell Helicopter needed functional, aerospace‑grade prototypes for an experimental tail‑wiring upgrade on the Osprey. To meet strict requirements for durability, chemical resistance and rapid turnaround, Bell’s Xworx prototyping lab used a Stratasys Fortus FDM (fused deposition modeling) system to produce wiring conduit models in polycarbonate (PC) and PPSF.

Using the Stratasys Fortus FDM system, technicians produced one stabilizer set, then five more sets for a total of 42 conduit models in about 2.5 days with around‑the‑clock printing — work that would have taken roughly six weeks with cast aluminum. The Stratasys solution kept work in‑house, cut costs, eliminated lengthy post‑processing, enabled more design iterations and accelerated development, yielding faster, better‑designed components for the Osprey program.

Bell Helicopter

Mike Storp

RP Lab Technician