Photo from open sources
Engineers of the american national government for space exploration was printed on a volumetric printer turbine rocket pump. This is the first ever 3D printing of parts, necessary for space flight. The turbine has already been successfully tested. Huntsville Space Flight Center employees.
In 2013, the British company Rolls-Royce was the first to print printer car turbine. After some time, the British officially announced that 3D printers can be used to manufacturing parts of aircraft engines. Now, apparently the turn of rocket turbines came.
Fuel rocket pump is a complex mechanism, consisting of hundreds of parts. The turbine is one of the most important components of the pump – it makes up to ninety-five thousand revolutions per minute during injection of liquefied hydrogen. IN In this mode, the turbine is subjected to huge loads, thanks to what quickly wears out. For this reason, every detail requires precision manufacturing and extremely precise assembly alignment. Volume printing reduces the number of parts needed for the pump, forty-five percent, and also significantly accelerate their manufacture.
A turbine designed by NASA engineers was printed on special volume printer by laser sintering powders made of metal. Metal powders were injected into the chamber and fused with pulses of a powerful laser. All technology strictly It was controlled by a high-performance modern computer. Each the detail was formed layer by layer, with an excess of metal particles blown away. Then the parts were hardened and polished.
In the picture below you can see the finished result. As they say experts, it is impossible to distinguish from a factory product by eye. A tests have shown that in operation such a turbine is simply gorgeous.
A photo from open sources
NASA time
