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UCSD Students Test Fire 3D-Printed Metal Rocket Engine
schwit1 writes "Like something out of a Robert Heinlein novel, students at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have built a metal rocket engine using a technique previously confined to NASA. Earlier this month, the UCSD chapter of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) at the Jacobs School of Engineering conducted a hot fire test for a 3D-printed metal rocket engine at the Friends of Amateur Rocketry launch site in California's Mojave Desert. This is the first such test of a printed liquid-fueled, metal rocket engine by any university in the world and the first designed and printed outside of NASA."
News summaries are allowed to contain spoilers, you know.
(RTFA, and it did work.)
Surplus USSR rocket engines real cheap !! or, How I Stopped Wasting $1000s of Dollars Printing Tiny Junk Parts and Learned to Love Surplus !!
Did something generate this?
"and the first designed and printed outside of NASA"
How do you know? I am thinking a lot of countries out there are not so open about the goings on in their research labs. Same goes for the US military. My guess is that if NASA is already on the public record for X, quite a few organisations in the world have done Y, where Y > X.
3d metal printing - the possibilities for robotics projects excite me, although the dawning of skynet also fills me with dread.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Probably wont scale as the V2 scientists learned. Sintered metal (post processed in a furnace...) not overly great for tensile strength.
Also what performance ?? Does this rocket engine last more than a few second and does it have enough power to even lift itself off the ground???
Loose mechanical tolerances on working parts ? (extra machining required after 'printing' ??)
Recall that the 'printed gun' was good for just a few rounds (and I'd like to know the stats for the defect rate on the first firing).
What kind of know-nothing cretin thinks 'printed' has any relevance to stories like this if by 'printed' we mean machines vastly more expensive, complicated, and less effective than techniques like computer controlled milling? Are we supposed to think the laws of physics somehow change when a metal part has been 'printed', rather than produced using some other method? Is this how low the IQ of Slashdot readers has reached?
No one doubts the ability to 'print' objects of various materials, when the material itself can be applied as discrete layers or blobs, and fused to the previous layer. Solving the physical problems of material transport, and then 'fusing' the new material successfully to the material already 'printed' is certainly an interesting area of chemistry, metallurgy and engineering. However, for such methods to have useful application in applied fields of production, there need to be provable advantages over previous methods.
Who here is stupid enough to think that a printed metal part would have cost and/or strength advantages over the same part produced conventionally? Oh, for sure, if the conventional part is over engineered many times more than the application requires, a 'printed' part will APPEAR to get the job done if you don't look too closely- as with the printed 'gun' stories and this 'rocket' story- but what is the point (save to boost stock in 3D printer companies)?
I recall years back when an attempt was made to make a big deal of small computer controlled milling machines that could use scans of customers heads to immediately craft a model bust of that head. The world yawned at the gimmick. Now, if the word 'printed' is applied to similar ideas, we are supposed to get all excited?
Even in the home, even with a perfected 3D printer of plastic and ceramic like materials, I cannot see the use. Items so produced will either be too expensive per unit, or far too mechanically weak to use as replacement parts. Sure, artistic nerds might create nice sculptures, but for most people that is of zero interest.
Outside of commercial prototyping and other specialist uses, do 3D printers have a big future? When it becomes more apparent how mechanically inferior 'printed' objects tend to be, I very much doubt this.
When I saw the header, I thought that the rocket engine would have 3D-printed cooling ducts around its nozzle. It is something that Apollo / space shuttle - sized rocket engines have, but which can be quite complex. This engine doesn't.
The same 3D-printing process used here is commonly used for making steel moulds for injection moulding, particularly because 3D-printing can create cooling ducts in the moulds which are impossible to machine with current methods.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
I saw an article on Slashdot a few weeks ago about Elon Musk demoing a new 3D interface, which included showing a 3D printed rocket engine they'd designed and built.
And here it is...
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/09/07/1656244/elon-musk-shows-his-vision-of-holographic-design-technology
"and the first designed and printed outside of NASA" is wrong. See, for example, reports on http://rocketmoonlighting.blogspot.com/ where the author designed and later tested on the static fire stand a 3D-printed engine. No NASA connection.
It's not an only example either. If you have follower Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, you might remember Unreasonable Rocket team, which some considered as third best. In 2010 fall the blog http://unreasonablerocket.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html describes their experiments with 3D-printed engines.
Yes, this article states: "The rocket has a regenerative cooling jacket that extends to the nozzle to keep the engine cool while firing."
No, the modern milling is nowhere as convenient as 3D-printing for making this kind of engine. You can't mill channels from one piece, and welding - or soldering, as Russians used to do - greatly adds complexity to the process.
Yes, 3D-printed detail is not usually as strong as a milled one. However the difference in strength could be relatively small (see, e.g., http://www.morristech.com/Docs/CoCrDataSheet.pdf). For rocket engines the thrust-to-weight ratio is important, but still allowing for some compromises parameter.
The main advantage of using 3D-printers for rocket engines is simplicity of the process and rapid turnaround with designs. Both are important in order to get things right reasonably fast. For non-NASA, it could also mean money savings - since the main chamber with nozzle and collectors can be a single piece, single price item, and the remaining parts are relatively inexpensive.
3D-printing has some relationships to powder metallurgy, which was under development as a promising technology some decades ago. Today with 3D-printers you can have, for example, an engine made of steel infused with bronze - having good both mechanical and thermal properties.
Paul Breed was 3D printing liquid fuel rocket motors in 2010 and was test firing them by 2011. His test firings also took place at FAR, the same facility mentioned in this article.
Here is a link to Paul's blogs that (somewhat) relate to his experiments with printed engines:
Unreasonable Rocket
I believe that he beat NASA and everyone else out of the gate with this technique.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
When I saw the header, I thought that the rocket engine would have 3D-printed cooling ducts around its nozzle. It is something that Apollo / space shuttle - sized rocket engines have, but which can be quite complex. This engine doesn't.
The article clearly states: "The rocket has a regenerative cooling jacket that extends to the nozzle."
The jackets/piping are clearly visible in all the photos, too...
Please help metamoderate.
It only counts if they used "Raspberry Pi" to control the firing.
(no hipsters were hurt in the production of this post)
Now we need 3D printed metal mini-rockets that can shoot down these rockets, to put on commercial planes to stop the inevitable in 10 years.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
We made this part for the students, they designed and we printed. This is a fully dense part. Not a infused part like you get with others. We build fully functional parts along with prototypes. We build in Stainless steel (15-5,17-4) Cobalt Chrome, Inconel, Maraging Steel, Titanium and Aluminum.
By the way we made rocket moonlighting as well.
Check us out.
www.gpiprototype.com
dennisb@gpiprototype.com