For decades, one of the most trusted aluminum alloys in aerospace has had an embarrassing secret: it does not like being 3D printed. 7075 aluminum, the high-strength workhorse found in airframes, fixtures, and countless machined brackets, has long been known as a difficult alloy for laser powder bed fusion because it tends to crack as the melted metal solidifies. That is why a new announcement from America Makes matters to anyone who buys or designs parts, even if you never touch a metal printer. The national additive manufacturing institute, together with the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining, just named General Atomics Aeronautical Systems the winner of its $5.5 million GOTHAAM project call, a program aimed squarely at making a 7075-class aluminum printable, provable, and usable at scale.
What GOTHAAM actually is
GOTHAAM stands for Generation Of Technical-data for High-strength Aluminum Alloy Material. Funded through the Office of the Under Secretary of War Manufacturing Technology Office, the program tasks General Atomics and a deep bench of partners (including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Airbus, EOS America, Nikon AM, Equispheres, and Dyndrite) with developing material allowables for a corrosion-resistant aluminum alloy equivalent to 7075-T73.
The interesting part is the fine print: those allowables have to hold up across three classes of laser powder bed fusion machines, small, medium, and large format. In plain English, the goal is that a part printed on a compact machine at one supplier and a big-format machine at another can both point to the same validated data and say "this material performs like this, period." That is the difference between a cool demo and a supply chain.
I need a replacement for a discontinued aluminum bracket. Can someone actually 3D print one?
Yes, a discontinued aluminum bracket can usually be replaced by 3D scanning the original part, rebuilding the CAD model, and then printing or machining a replacement in a material matched to the job. This is exactly the kind of work we do at DC Additive Pros: we 3D scan and reverse engineer parts that no longer exist in any catalog, from vintage automotive pieces to one-off equipment brackets. For many brackets, housings, and fixtures, a properly oriented print in carbon fiber nylon, PCTG, or a high-temperature polymer like PEEK carries the load just fine at a fraction of the cost of metal. When the application truly demands aerospace aluminum, the honest answer today is machining, and programs like GOTHAAM are what will eventually make printed 7075-class parts a routine option instead of a special project.
Why "allowables" are the whole ballgame
An allowable is not a spec sheet number. It is a statistically grounded design value produced by printing and testing coupons over and over, across machines, powder lots, and build locations, until engineers can state with confidence what the material will do in the worst reasonable case. Designers of aircraft structure cannot use a material without that data, no matter how good one test bar looks.
This is why so much of additive manufacturing's progress in the last few years has been unglamorous. The headline machines already exist. What has been missing is boring, expensive, repeatable data, and that is precisely what this $5.5 million buys. When the data exists, purchasing departments stop asking "is 3D printing real?" and start asking "what is the lead time?"
My parts are not aircraft structure. Does any of this help me?
Yes, because the qualification playbook developed for aerospace aluminum trickles down to every serious print shop in the form of better process control, better documentation, and better materials. The same thinking, control the process, test the coupons, publish the numbers, is how we approach polymer work for engineering buyers. If your part needs to survive heat, chemicals, or repeated load, materials like PEEK and ULTEM already have deep published datasets, and we print them in-house on high-temperature equipment. You can read about that service on our PEEK and ULTEM 3D printing page. And if you just need a durable one-off or a short production run shipped fast, that is what our build and ship service is for.
One more note for hardware brands: we regularly review printers, scanners, filaments, and shop tools on this blog. If you make something our readers should see, reach out at info@dcadditivepros.com and we will consider it for a hands-on review.
Frequently asked questions
Why is 7075 aluminum hard to 3D print?
7075 has long been known to be prone to cracking during laser powder bed fusion, because its alloying elements make the melt pool sensitive as it solidifies. Programs like GOTHAAM exist to develop printable 7075-equivalent alloys and the test data to back them up.
What is a material allowable in 3D printing?
A material allowable is a statistically validated design value, built from many repeated tests across machines and material lots, that tells engineers the minimum performance they can count on. It is the data foundation that lets printed parts be used in critical applications.
Can a small shop 3D print aerospace-grade aluminum parts today?
Not casually. Printing flight hardware requires qualified machines, qualified powder, and validated data, which is exactly what the GOTHAAM program is being funded to create. For most small-shop metal needs today, machining or a qualified metal printing partner is the practical route.
Do I need metal at all, or will a strong polymer part work?
Many brackets, housings, jigs, and replacement parts do not need metal. Carbon fiber reinforced nylons and high-temperature polymers like PEEK or ULTEM handle a surprising range of loads and temperatures, often at lower cost and faster turnaround than metal.