AP&C Providing Titanium Powders to Airbus

AP&C, a GE Additive company, has signed an agreement with Airbus to provide titanium powders (Ti-6AI-4V) for use in metal additive manufacturing (AM) applications. The new multiyear agreement to provide Ti-6AI-4V powders deepens AP&C’s working relationship with Airbus, which dates back several years.

“The adoption of metal additive technology in aerospace continues to gather momentum,” says Alain Dupont, AP&C CEO. “And one of the challenges of matching that pace in a highly regulated industry like aerospace, is building a robust supply chain that can meet both the industry standard for conventionally and additively manufactured parts, but also add value.”

AP&C says its approach is to be more than just a supplier of metal powders to customers. “To scale metal additive manufacturing, acceleration can only be achieved by sharing knowledge best practice to lower risk and increase stability,” Dupont says. “One way we have supported Airbus in recent years, for example, has been to help its in-house additive manufacturing team establish its own methods and processes to qualify Ti-6AI-4V powders.”

AP&C is a producer of plasma-atomized titanium, aluminum and nickel powders. The company says it continues to invest in its plasma atomization technology which enables new materials to be produced and may ultimately reduce the cost of plasma-atomized powders, while maintaining the high quality required by metal AM users in the aerospace industry.

AP&C has grown its capacity to more than 1,000 tons of titanium powder per year. This large- scale production is performed in more than a dozen powder production lines at two manufacturing sites.