An Investigation into the Comparative Costs of Additive Manufacture vs. Machine from Solid for Aero Engine Parts

A relationship is developed to estimate the specific cost of AM material required to achieve a (typical) 30% saving over conventional MFS techniques. The use of AM techniques are shown to be advantageous for parts which have a high buy:fly ratio, have a complex shape, have a high cost of raw material used for machining from solid, have slow machining rates and are difficult and expensive to machine.