Ascent Aerospace has announced its recent investment of a Large Scale Additive Manufacturing (LSAM) machine from Thermwood Corporation.

As a new tooling option for its customers, Ascent intends to utilise the LSAM machine to bring tools such as layup moulds, masters, trimming/drilling fixtures and vacuum holding fixtures to market faster than ever before. The LSAM machine will be co-located with Ascent’s composite tooling shop, autoclave and clean room in Santa Ana, California, and will allow it to build targeted tools lighter and more efficiently, providing time and cost savings to its global customers.

The LSAM machine will have an industry-leading build area, providing aerospace customers the opportunity to benefit from large-scale printed composite tooling. By combining this technology with Ascent’s in-house tooling expertise and heritage engineering, it will be possible to fabricate and deliver fully functional select fixtures and moulds with significantly reduced lead-times of a traditional metallic tool. The wide variety of materials that are compatible with the LSAM, such as ABS, Polycarbonate, Nylon, and PESU resins with reinforcing compounds, will further expand the selection of tooling solutions that Ascent will bring to the market.

Ascent Aerospace CEO, Michael Mahfet stated: “Our investment in the LSAM represents the next milestone in Ascent’s multi-year technology roadmap and realisation of expansive efforts studying the benefits of additive manufacturing within the aerospace tooling market. This capability positions us to remain the leader in new and innovative tooling solutions, supporting strong collaboration with our customers and supplementing our in-house, vertically integrated design and fabrication capabilities.”

www.ascentaerospace.com

www.thermwood.com