Airbus establishes R&D partnership with Chinese firm for polymer additive manufacturing solutions

Based on this collaboration, Airbus and Farsoon will combine and share their collective expertise to research and develop a high-performance polymer material for civil aircraft for deployment on Farsoon's AM systems. Furthermore, Farsoon will fine-tune and optimize processing parameters for the new material on its open platform systems, which offers users full access to processing parameters; while Airbus will validate the properties and performance according to the needs of civil aviation requirements.

"We are very excited to start this R&D collaboration with Airbus. As a leading industrial AM solution provider, Farsoon has been pushing towards the transition of AM applications from prototyping to manufacturing." said Dr. Xu Xiaoshu. "We believe AM technology will be increasingly used in aerospace and aviation manufacturing. In the future, by joining hands with Airbus, Farsoon will be able to contribute to the full workflow for AM production in civil aviation."

"This is the first time for Airbus to cooperate with a Chinese company in the polymer AM industry. Airbus has been [keeping pace] with development of AM technology, and we are impressed by Farsoon's capability of innovation and industrial focus," commented Michel Tran Van: "Airbus is looking for more than the performance of new materials. We need to keep in mind what industrializing AM needs, including workflow development, cost management, industrial manufacturing capabilities and speed. With the same goal of industrialization, I look forward to the R&D results of this collaboration, and I believe we will carry out more cooperation in the future."

Farsoon is a global manufacturer and supplier of industrial level polymer and metal laser sintering systems. The company claims to be the leading supplier of industrial AM technology in China with increasing growth in the international market.

In 2017, Farsoon released the first of a new series of AM machines under the Continuous Additive Manufacturing Solution (CAMS-Continuous Additive Manufacturing System) system, and established Farsoon Technologies-Americas in Austin, TX, USA. In 2018, Farsoon Europe GmbH was established in Stuttgart, Germany to expand direct operations to Europe.