Australian industrial scale metal additive manufacturing company Titomic is pleased to announce that it has signed a partnership agreement with US-based Ascent Aerospace (Ascent) specifically for the execution of commercial opportunities to deliver the unique capabilities of Titomic's Kinetic Fusion (TKF) for Ascent's associated aerospace customer base.

Ascent is the leading provider of aerospace tooling systems, assembly automation and factory integration for the aerospace, defense and space industries globally.

Ascent employs more than 900 industry professionals, across 11 locations globally, delivering a variety of products and solutions to resolve challenging aerostructure assembly requirements, from wing components and fuselage structures to final assembly lines. As the industry's largest tooling and automation group, Ascent produces a full suite of composite tooling, layup molds, mandrels, bond tools, and trim and drill fixtures, including the largest Invar molds ever made for aerospace. Ascent also offers automated, highprecision drilling and fastening systems, having installed more than 2,200 systems globally.

As an assembly line integrator, Ascent works with airframers to develop their project and see it through from process design and engineering to build and installation, to ensure it is an efficient and cost effective solution. This strategy has allowed Ascent Aerospace to develop long-term, strategic alliances with the world's foremost manufacturers in the commercial aerospace, business aviation, defense, space launch and satellite markets.

The partnership will consist of two phases:

Phase 1 – Validation Phase

Titomic to deliver an Ascent customer approved Invar36 tool produced using the TKF9000 metal additive manufacturing system to perform a test and production feasibility trial.

Phase 2 – Adoption Phase

Establish joint-sales strategy for the supply of aerospace tooling, using TKF's metal additive manufacturing process, to reduce the current lengthy lead-times to meet the growing global demand.

Titomic has conducted extensive research and development of metal tooling for the aerospace and defence industries, and has now reached an inflection point to provide the industry with a new tooling option using TKF industrial scale metal additive manufacturing, improving tool performance, part production and reduced lead times. This partnership will build on the current development activities of Titomic in order to produce metal tooling with reduced porosity, with improving tool wear resistance and deliver a more sustainable green production process by reducing material waste.

Mr. Jeff Lang, Titomic Managing Director, said, "The significant increase in the global tooling market is being driven by the aerospace and defence industries' compounding need for higher production rates of carbon fiber parts. The increased use of carbon fiber parts in commercial aircraft has created a backlog in the supply of tooling that is not being resolved. Titomic's partnership with Ascent Aerospace makes strategic sense to further validate the commercial opportunities for industrial scale metal additive manufacturing using Titomic's TKF systems to resolve this current, and ongoing, backlog for tooling. Ascent Aerospace's notable achievements in producing the largest Invar molds ever made, and as one of the largest composite tooling manufacturers in the world, provides both companies with an inflection point to disrupt the traditional tooling industry by providing a more efficient manufacturing using Titomic's TKF systems to deliver more sustainable tooling supply to meet increasing global demand.

Mr. Michael Mahfet, CEO of Ascent Aerospace, stated, "Our focused research & development activities in additive manufacturing technologies aligns with Ascent's multi-year technology roadmap and realization of expansive efforts studying the benefits of these technologies within the aerospace tooling market. Staying at the forefront of additive manufacturing positions us to remain the leader in new and innovative tooling solutions, supporting strong collaboration with our customers and supplementing our in-house, vertically integrated design and fabrication capabilities. We look forward to working with Titomic in the advancement of metallic 3D printing for the aerospace tooling industry."