Norwegian additive manufacturer Norsk Titanium has signed a Cooperation & Research Agreement (CRA) with Airbus, moving their relationship from program-specific supply into a structured, multi-year industrialization effort. The agreement targets the qualification of Norsk Titanium’s proprietary Rapid Plasma Deposition technology for fatigue-critical structural titanium parts, a category that represents some of the most demanding certification territory in commercial aerospace.
The announcement lands on the heels of a significant regulatory milestone: the FAA and EASA certification of the Lower Frame Fitting for the Airbus A350, described as the largest and highest-classification additively manufactured aerostructure component to receive dual regulatory approval for commercial flight. The part entered series production at Norsk Titanium’s Plattsburgh facility in New York and first flew on an A350 earlier this year.
“Together with the recent FAA certification of the Lower Frame Fitting for the Airbus A350, this represents an additional endorsement of our RPD technology and another step toward expanding the adoption across commercial aircraft programs”, says Fabrizio Ponte, CEO of Norsk Titanium.
Norsk Titanium and Airbus are partnering to industrialize and qualify Plasma DED RPD technology. Image via Norsk Titanium.
Four Work Packages, One Long-Term Architecture
The CRA is organized around four work packages addressing technology scaling, material and process qualification, and material expansion behind titanium. Norsk Titanium will work directly with Airbus’s DED project team, coordinating across engineering, airworthiness, and operations at the Saint Eloi and Varel plants, facilities already familiar with the technology through earlier collaboration.
The objective is not a single qualified part but the embedding of RPD into Airbus’s material, process, and industrial standards, a prerequisite for repeatable, program-wide use. That means standardizing titanium wire specifications, validating industrial processes at scale, and aligning all outputs with Airbus’s internal requirements.
The scope builds on two prior agreements: a Master Supply Agreement signed with Airbus Aerostructures in 2024 for A350 production support, and a joint DED process documentation effort at the Varel facility. The new CRA elevates those discrete collaborations into a single, comprehensive industrialization framework.
“Industrialization takes time, but the direction of travel is clear. Working together with Airbus, we are building the foundation for RPD to serve the industry at scale and to deliver the cost, lead-time and material savings that the aerospace industry requires”, said Ponte.
Near net shape and finished aerospace components. Photo via Norsk Titanium.
The Long Road to Structural Qualification in Aerospace AM
Norsk Titanium’s CRA with Airbus reflects a strategic reality the entire wire-DED sector is navigating: in aerospace, the gap between a functional printed part and a flight-certified structural component is measured in years, not months. Traditional titanium forging can result in up to 95% of purchased material being removed during machining, while wire-based deposition builds parts directly from titanium wire at several kilograms per hour. Yet full certification for broader critical airframe applications remains in progress, underscoring that qualification requirements, not process capability alone, determine adoption in flight hardware.
The race to close that gap is playing out across the industry simultaneously. GKN Aerospace committed $8.4 million alongside the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to the TITAN-AM program, designed to scale wire-based laser metal deposition for real-world aerospace production of large structural components, with a focus on building comprehensive material performance databases to guarantee structural integrity and developing non-destructive inspection techniques suited to additive parts.
Turkish Aerospace Industries has already moved to 3D print titanium aerostructures up to six meters in length using directed energy deposition, as part of pilot projects designed to help the manufacturer master deployment of the technology at scale.
Industry certification bodies are taking note. Nadcap anticipates significant growth in open-architecture laser wire DED systems for large-format parts, with GKN publicly building engine frame structures via the process and buy-to-fly ratios dropping from 30-to-1 to near-net-shape output with minimal waste.
For Norsk Titanium, the CRA with Airbus is the mechanism that converts RPD’s proven performance into that kind of program-level permanence.
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Featured image shows Norsk Titanium and Airbus are partnering to industrialize and qualify Plasma DED RPD technology. Image via Norsk Titanium.