Overture uses 100% sustainable aviation fuel to achieve net-zero carbon emissions while flying at twice the speed of today's fastest passenger aircraft. XB-1 is the company's 2020 demonstrator aircraft currently undergoing net-zero carbon emissions flight testing.

Challenge

Connecting the various parts of the XB-1 demonstrator aircraft requires drilling a large number of holes in the fuselage structure. Drilling the holes individually is time-consuming because each hole must be positioned. In addition, a fixture is required to support the drilling tool and hold each hole at the correct angle during the power drilling process. Drill guides are a practical solution, but traditional metal guides are expensive and have long lead times.

Solution

Boom engineers 3D printed a multi-hole drill guide to accurately locate fastener holes in a large area of the fuselage structure.

The multi-hole drill guide is printed on Fortus 450mc™ and F900™ printers using FDM® Nylon 12CF carbon fiber and ULTEM™ 9085 resin materials.

These strong, rigid thermoplastics have enough strength and stiffness to support powered drilling tools while enabling precise hole location.

For a typical drill guide alone, Boom saved nearly $3,700 (about 24,000 RMB) in material costs and reduced lead times from weeks to days. So far, more than 700 hole guides have been produced using 3D printing technology in the production of the XB-1 demonstrator aircraft, with significant material cost savings. The lead time saved by using 3D printing in-house compared to machining has also had a very positive impact on production schedules.