SWiFT-AM
Advanced Lightweight Structures through Additive Manufacturing
Metal additive manufacturing is transforming the design and production of high-performance aerospace components. By building structures layer by layer, technologies such as laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) enable complex geometries that cannot be manufactured using conventional methods. In particular, metallic lattice structures offer exceptional opportunities for reducing structural weight while maintaining high stiffness and strength. These characteristics are highly attractive for aerospace applications, where lightweight design directly contributes to improved efficiency, reduced fuel consumption, and lower emissions.
Despite these advantages, the application of additively manufactured lattice structures in safety-critical aircraft components remains challenging. Manufacturing-induced defects, residual stresses, heterogeneous microstructures, and surface roughness can significantly reduce fatigue resistance. Moreover, the complex internal surfaces of lattice structures are difficult to inspect and improve using conventional finishing techniques.
How can we exploit the design freedom of metal additive manufacturing while ensuring the fatigue resistance and damage tolerance required for safety-critical aerospace structures?
Understanding and improving fatigue performance
SWiFT-AM addresses this challenge through an integrated research approach combining experimental characterization, advanced computational modelling, and innovative surface engineering. The project aims to establish a fundamental understanding of the relationships between manufacturing processes, material microstructure, structural geometry, and mechanical performance.
A major research activity focuses on understanding how LPBF processing conditions influence the properties of metallic lattice structures. Advanced thermo-mechanical simulations are developed to predict temperature evolution, residual stresses, and microstructural variations during manufacturing. These numerical models are supported by experimental investigations involving microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and mechanical fatigue testing.
Another important research direction concerns electrochemical polishing. This surface treatment offers the possibility of removing manufacturing-induced roughness and defects, including those located deep inside complex lattice architectures. By reducing local stress concentrations, electrochemical polishing has the potential to delay fatigue crack initiation and significantly improve structural reliability.
Designing the next generation of lightweight structures
The experimental and numerical results are combined to develop physics-based design rules and computational optimization methods for fatigue-resistant lattice structures. A particularly important aspect is the balance between fatigue life and damage tolerance. While relatively coarse lattice structures may provide improved fatigue resistance, finer architectures offer multiple load paths that can redistribute forces when individual structural members fail.
SWiFT-AM investigates how this trade-off can be systematically controlled through lattice geometry, manufacturing parameters, and surface treatment. The resulting optimization framework will also enable structures with locally tailored stiffness, opening opportunities for compliant mechanisms and adaptive or morphing aerospace components.
SWiFT-AM aims to make fatigue resistance, damage tolerance, and structural adaptability explicit design parameters, rather than limitations addressed after manufacturing.
From fundamental research to aerospace applications
Ultimately, SWiFT-AM seeks to bridge the gap between fundamental materials science and practical aerospace engineering. The developed computational tools, experimentally validated models, and design guidelines will be integrated and demonstrated in a representative aerospace case study.
By advancing the understanding and prediction of fatigue behaviour in additively manufactured metals, the project will contribute to the qualification and future implementation of reliable, lightweight structures in aerospace systems.
| SWiFT-AM: Advanced Lightweight Structures through Additive Manufacturing | |
| Funding | RVO |
| Years | 2026-2030 |
| PhD Candidate / PostDoc | Vacancy |
| Supervisors | Joris Remmers, Hans van Dommelen |
| Collaborators | |
