General Electric Aviation, which developed the advanced turboprop (ATP) for the Denali, included a few novel features in the engine to make the aircraft as jet-like as possible. For one thing, a number of the components on the turboprop will be 3D-printed from titanium and steel, eliminating the need to manufacture hundreds of smaller parts.This could have interesting applications as the technology filters down. You could have less expensive manufacturing of complex and high tolerance parts. Cool stuff.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
3D Printing A Turbine?
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In the early forties, science fiction author George O. Smith wrote a series of stories about a communications station called Venus Equilateral.
ReplyDeleteAmong the technology he invented is the matter duplicator. As long as you kept the hopper loaded, the machine would print anything.
And lest we get too serious, we could think about using the 3D printer to make large DD objects.
Technically, you could say that DD objects are 2D, but as you have shown in a great number of postings, sometimes 2D (DD) objects are anything but flat.
True, thought some impressive things can be done with DD objects like transmission gears. Someone even Sinter printed a full 1911, including the barrel.
DeleteThe place I work at does Heat Treating of a lot of jet engine turbines along with many other things. We are already seeing 3D printed metal parts made out of Titanium and will be doing these turbines as soon as they hit the dock.
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