I second this. I'm part of an university team building a racecar and we mostly use additive manufacturing for carbon fibre parts that are difficult to lay by hands, such as the intake and certain wings. For this we just need basic polymers. It's a cost issue.
However, this year we are starting to build functional components. We are looking at printing the brake cooling ducts - they need to survive 200 C and 400 bar.
The biggest problem in AM right now that I hear about is "how do we scale up"? Batches are very small and take a long time - to be truly useful, one needs to print a part in minutes, not days.
However, this year we are starting to build functional components. We are looking at printing the brake cooling ducts - they need to survive 200 C and 400 bar.
Some better funded teams print their uprights (the part joining the wheels to the frame) in titanium (https://www.reddit.com/r/FSAE/comments/6acr6d/amazing_additi...). The part is strengthened by annealing it.
The biggest problem in AM right now that I hear about is "how do we scale up"? Batches are very small and take a long time - to be truly useful, one needs to print a part in minutes, not days.