India’s aerospace business is beginning to lean extra closely on 3D printing, and one of many nation’s largest engineering corporations is teaming up with 3D printing chief EOS to make that occur. Godrej Enterprises Group, which builds key components for India’s rockets and satellites, has signed a take care of EOS. The objective is to carry additive manufacturing (AM) into extra components of India’s aviation and house provide chain.
The announcement was made at Aero India 2025, one of many nation’s high aerospace occasions, and marks a transparent push to hurry up using 3D printing to construct advanced aerospace components quicker and extra effectively.
Godrej and EOS groups at Aero India 2025. Picture courtesy of EOS.
Aerospace manufacturing is likely one of the hardest and costliest fields in engineering. In India alone, the aerospace components market was value $13.6 billion in 2023 and is predicted to develop quick. What’s extra, making components that may survive house launches or high-altitude flights usually means years of improvement, testing, and meeting. That’s the place 3D printing is available in. As an alternative of utilizing conventional strategies that want many components and lengthy meeting instances, 3D printing can create a single, advanced piece in a single go. That may lower down on prices, cut back weight, and streamline design. Now, with this new partnership, India is organising a stronger basis to scale that type of work.
Godrej Aerospace, a part of the bigger Godrej Enterprises Group, has been constructing key components for India’s house missions for many years. It has made engines, thrusters, and tanks for the Indian House Analysis Organisation (ISRO), together with components that helped India attain the Moon’s South Pole and Mars orbit. Its amenities in Mumbai are among the most superior within the nation relating to house tech.
In the meantime, Germany’s EOS is a world large in industrial 3D printing. The corporate has labored with high aerospace shoppers globally and is understood for its large-scale, multi-laser metallic printers. EOS machines are already utilized in many business and spaceflight functions, serving to cut back half rely and allow lighter, extra sturdy designs.
By working collectively, these two corporations plan to assist India turn out to be extra impartial in superior manufacturing, and never only for government-led missions, but additionally for personal aerospace corporations.
EOS’ high quality assurance of components for aviation. Picture courtesy of EOS.
Step one on this partnership is to arrange new large-scale 3D printing operations at Godrej Aerospace’s amenities. These methods will use EOS metallic 3D printing know-how to provide components for plane and spacecraft. They are going to give attention to making sturdy, advanced components which can be too tough to construct utilizing conventional strategies.
The partnership additionally contains help from EOS’s engineering workforce, known as Additive Minds, to assist practice Godrej workers, qualify components for aerospace use, and ensure the 3D printed components meet the strict security requirements required for flight.
“This partnership is an enormous step towards the longer term,” stated Maneck Behramkamdin, head of Godrej Aerospace. “3D printing is driving a paradigm shift in aerospace design, enabling us to create advanced sizes and styles via a single printing course of. We’re dedicated to increasing our portfolio of ‘inexperienced’ merchandise whereas bettering manufacturing worth via materials effectivity and streamlined processes.”
EOS India’s director Vinu Vijayan added that 3D printing has already simplified aerospace components from greater than 100 items down to only three or 4 in some instances, decreasing each value and complexity. He additionally identified that the corporate has succeeded in creating and certifying the primary flight-safety-critical, Class 2 titanium half for a passenger plane, which is taken into account the best degree of qualification for aerospace.
India’s Chandrayaan-3. Picture courtesy of Godrej.
India’s aerospace sector has grown quick lately. ISRO now launches satellites repeatedly and plans extra Moon and human spaceflight missions. On the identical time, startups like Skyroot Aerospace and Agnikul Cosmos are constructing small rockets utilizing 3D printed engines. Each corporations have launched or are getting ready to launch their first missions. Wipro 3D, a part of India’s Wipro group, is one other large identify in metallic 3D printing. It has labored with HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Restricted) and ISRO, providing metallic AM companies for jet engines and satellite tv for pc components.
Nonetheless, a lot of India’s 3D printing capability is restricted to analysis labs or small-scale manufacturing. Many universities and tech institutes, like IIT Bombay, have used 3D printing for many years, primarily for analysis and prototyping. Startups are additionally lively, however massive factories utilizing 3D printing at scale are nonetheless uncommon. The Indian authorities truly launched a nationwide 3D printing technique in 2022 to vary this, seeking to develop the business.
However to maneuver past the lab and into full-scale manufacturing, particularly for one thing as demanding as aerospace, India wants greater corporations to get entangled. That’s what makes this new deal between EOS and Godrej so vital.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussing Agnikul’s plans for rockets. Picture courtesy of Agnikul.
The Indian authorities has been pushing to construct extra of its know-how contained in the nation via the “Make in India” initiative. That features all the things from fighter jets to satellites. 3D printing is an enormous a part of this plan, particularly to assist India rely much less on different nations for high-tech components.
Ankit Saharan from EOS’s Additive Minds workforce known as the partnership a “pure match,” stating that India additionally wants extra educated engineers and technicians in AM to help the business’s progress. As a part of the settlement, EOS and Godrej plan to work on creating native expertise and constructing long-term technical capabilities.
Over the following few years, EOS and Godrej plan to check and certify 3D printed components for actual flight missions. If profitable, these components might be utilized in Indian-made plane and rockets and presumably even be exported to world aerospace producers.
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