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GE Is 3D Printing a Working Jet Engine
lurking_giant writes: GE Aviation's Additive Development Center near Cincinnati has produced a number of firsts but they are now demonstrating a working 3D-printed jet engine, (OK, it's sized for an RC model). The engine turns at 33,000 RPM and is made from all 3D metal printed parts. They used the same EOS M270 3D printer that they use to produce the first and only FAA flight approved hardware, a T25 Pres and temp sensor for use in GE90 jumbo jet engines.
DMLS printing uses metal powders sintered by high power lasers. The metals not only include Titanium and Inconel (rocket engine superalloy), but can include gradient transitions between them in the same piece. While some surface work may be required for some applications, the crystalline structure of the metal itself is of finer quality that that produced by machining + annealing used for high grade parts the old fashioned way.
These are not your homebrew melted plastic filament printers, and they are changing manufacturing.
That's an extrusion process, not a printing process.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It's a Sensor HOUSING, not the sensor that goes in it.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I think there's a market for maybe five 3D printers.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I'm not sure you're right. It adds metal powders and melts them with a laser. That's why it can create alloys, by mixing dry metal powders and then heating them to precise temperatures. .
[X] Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
Yeah I was going to say...
Saw a program a while back, about RR jet engines. Some of those fan blades are not only so finely machined and built that they are hand-made, but also get internally imaged for problems or stress.
What such tricks with 3d printing do accomplish is they let engineers build a mock-up or scale model from their designs much more efficiently than before.
...
making it using a new technology is fine and dandy, but it's not as if the object itself is particularly complicated, built to a fine tolerance, or anything like that.
You can still buy sloppy 1911s, but most of them are CNC milled now and they are actually pretty tight. Someone has to break them in, in fact; for Kimbers and cheaper ones it's you, for more expensive ones it's usually someone else.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
you could build it by hand.
you can build the metal parts with a metal 3d printer.. more expensive than traditional methods for no benefit though. the magnets? i suppose you could, but for what benefit? and the coils? well you most certainly would like to use a coiling machine to coil them up.. but printing the copper in place as the coils.. would be too expensive and too stupid.
anyways, https://www.youtube.com/watch?... as you can see, not _everything_ about it is 3d printed.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
DMLS printing is not going to produce single crystal turbine blades, and is therefore not going to compete any time soon in that space. You might be able to print all the parts of a jet engine, but the result is not going to match the performance of one assembled from more conventional manufacturing processes. Even a 1% drop in efficiency of a jet engine is basically unacceptable in the airline industry these days.