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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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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.
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.
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.