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Researchers Create World's First 3D-Printed Jet Engines
Zothecula writes: Working with colleagues from Deakin University and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), researchers from Australia's Monash University have created the world's first 3D-printed jet engine. While they were at it, they created the world's second one, too. One of them is currently on display at the International Air Show in Avalon, Australia, while the other can be seen at the headquarters of French aerospace company Microturbo, in Toulouse.
No word on whether the thing was ever powered up, or is simply a neat toy.
From the gizmodo link:
According to Wu, the next step will be to fine-tune the finish of the components, with testing of a 3D-printed engine expected to take place within a couple of years.
So what the have produced right now could be considered a static display model, but their aim is produce a working engine.
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Clickbaity hype like this doesn't just waste my time, it tends to cause apathy and skepticism of science and engineering in the populace at large. Stop it.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
It is just a display model, but this is actually one of the applications of 3D printing worth getting excited about.
Jet engines are a good candidate because they are low volume, high margin, and the current designs are compromised somewhat by the existing manufacturing technologies available. The ability to make more complex aerodynamic forms, create single parts with variations in material composition throughout, and the potential to speed up development and testing of different designs is huge for this industry.
However there are still a lot of issues to work through, and I’m not sure how they are ever going to produce a sintered turbine blade that can perform as well as an existing one. I would imagine much of their research is going into this area but these are tough problems to solve.
If they can create the parts that fast, why don't they just power it up, see which parts fail, and improve those, rather than trying to improve it before testing? After all, they can reprint broken/worn parts (and probably reassemble) within a 2-3 week period.
Granted, I know the grad students and postdocs need to write their papers, and I know sintered metal isn't always as strong as parts made via other methods, but two years seems a bit long for the fire-up process.
That is all.
Here's a video of Elon Musk printing titanium engine components way back in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Which actually means ... they haven't produced a 3d printed turbine. They've produced a model of one. Higher quality than I can produce, sure, but not one thats actually any more useful than one I can produce.
This is a really good example of a stupid place to 3d print something, you're not going to get the strength you can get in traditional manufacturing techniques, its going to cost way more and you'll never find anyone with a clue about mechanical engineering trusting his/her life to one.
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Laser sintering of titanium is a well established process and should produce excellent turbine blades. 3d printing plus thermal spraying (a new one I've seen uses a form of laser spraying) might actually be able to produce parts better than would be possibly by any other means (such as machining cast metal) because you're not only heating the grains to join them together, but compacting them at high velocity.
Even for the more "primitive" 3d printing metal techs, they're just lost wax casting where the original mold is 3d printed. So the results are no worse than any other lost wax cast metal.
And yes, I was hopeful that this was a fully finished, working product. And that I'd be able to download the model. There's little that I'd be willing to pay the premium of laser titanium sintering for, but a micro jet turbine is one of those things. ;)
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
Even for the more "primitive" 3d printing metal techs, they're just lost wax casting where the original mold is 3d printed. So the results are no worse than any other lost wax cast metal.
The problem with lost-wax and other molded metals is that the fatigue strength is much lower than forged or machined parts. Tolerances are also much looser because the tolerances from each step - wax positive, ceramic negative, poured positive, etc. add up. Fatigue life might not be an issue for a model airplane engine, but it is a safety issue for anything carrying humans.
Microturbines are one of those few things where 3d printing might actually prove an economical means of production - the keys being small, intricate, and very expensive.
I wonder how effective it'd be to print out one of these, minus the windings. They've got crazy power output (up to 100kW sustained / 200kW peak) and efficiency (up to 98%) in a motor small enough (20kg; significantly less without the windings) to make a 3d printing service (or more realistically in this case, a custom CNC milling service) cost effective. Buying them commercially, they're something like $4k USD each. But there's a 3d model available, so....
All I can say is, I'd love an electric car with one of those driving each wheel....
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
The precision is actually pretty impressive, I've had a model I designed printed out in brass before, and some of the detail, I can't imagine milling achieving it. But yeah, no question that milling or sintering will get your stronger parts.
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
For a more pedestrian use, there is one thing that an engine like this that has a specific power band range would be ideal at... and that would be a generator. Here in the US, it would need to be geared to 3600 RPM unless an inverter is used.
If they were this efficient that they could get that much power output, it might be something to have as a backup generator for a house, as it could run from natural gas, propane, gasoline, or diesel.
Many commercial jet aircraft components are produced with lost wax casting using titanium, with subsequent hot isostatic pressing. (HIP.) Source: I am a propulsion design engineer at an large commercial aircraft manufacturer. Also "3D Printing" (we call it additive manufacturing) has been used in the aircraft industry for at least 10 years that I have experience with, although it is typically used for either tooling or test parts. I few a 3D printed titanium exhaust duct on a flight test in 2010, then implemented the same part for production using conventional manufacturing methods. 304 of them in service so far with no issues.
3D-printed metal has been used for quite a while in some of the lower-performance stages (lower pressure, lower temperature). Examples here. The key benefit is that they are able to integrate convoluted channels within the structure for cooling or mixing. You can also reduce weight by taking away significant internal volume, replacing it with ribs or a sparse matrix. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's mainstream, but it's close.