The global objective of the Eco-Design ITD was to reduce the product environmental impact while keeping competitiveness of the aeronautic industry. The TIFAN project addressed the manufacturing by SLM of fan wheel of an air-cooling unit that is currently made of stainless steel. New environmentally friendly fan wheels made of Titanium alloy TA6V were developed. 5 fan wheel demonstrators were fully manufactured and characterised within the project.

The TIFAN project involved the comparison between SLM and conventional bar machining process in terms of material properties (Rm, Rp0.2, E, E%, fatigue, surface roughness and corrosion resistance), environmental impact (Life Cycle Assessment) and cost.

The project was focused in the next value aspects:

• Developing at the maximum the versatility SLM manufacturing technology offers.
• Applying advanced in-process and post-built surface quality improvement strategies.
• Optimizing powder usage efficiency by defining improved powder recycling methodologies and minimizing the volume required for support structures
• Optimizing fan wheel design applying full advantage of SLM possibilities: light-weight design, lattice structures.
• Decreasing the environmental impact and manufacturing process by means of component’s weight and waste raw materials and CO2 emissions reduction.

The objective of the TIFAN project was not only to manufacture demonstrators, but to identify the critical factors that could give rise to a further manufacturing cost and weight reduction as well as mechanical performance improvement. Some of these factors comprised a significant progress beyond the state of the art.

The success of TIFAN’s goal had technical, industrial, and environmental impacts. Real impact was measured and compared to traditional manufacturing processes. On the other hand, technical conclusions of TIFAN were transferable to other components, fostering in this way the competitiveness of European Aeronautical Companies.