Melbourne engineers print jet engine in world first

Mar 02, 2015

Engineers working from a garage-size lab in suburban Melbourne have made the world's first 3D printed jet engine.

The work of Amaero Engineering and Monash University has attracted the attention of Boeing, Airbus and defence manufacturer Raytheon, with the developers touting it as the potential saviour of the declining manufacturing industry.

It also has the potential to revolutionise the medical industry, researchers say.

3D printing technology, which is also known as "additive manufacturing", is decades old. It was first used in the early 1980s to create a small plastic cup.

 

 

The jet engine, the first ever to be produced with a 3D printer, was made using a high-powered laser and fused powdered nickel, titanium or aluminium into the shape of objects layer by layer.

The breakthrough has many other potential applications outside the aerospace industry, including the creation of body parts.

"There's certainly a lot of applications in the biomedical space and that includes everything from implants to customised implants for example, all the way through to surgical guides," Mr Batagol said.

"They're also doing parts for surgical patients, who have had to have part of their cranium removed and they're able to 3D print part of the cranium that has been removed and actually insert that in the body."

The first stage of 3D printing involves laying out a "virtual blueprint" for an object using computer aided design software (CAD) or animation modelling software. The design file is then sent to the 3D printer.

Like an inkjet printer, the 3D printer moves over a platform, depositing material, usually metals or plastics. Layer by layer, the finished product starts to emerge. The different layers are automatically fused to create a single three-dimensional object.

The development of the jet engine began two years ago, when Amaero engineers and Monash University researchers joined forces to answer a challenge from French aerospace giant Safran.

"They gave us an old engine, we pulled it apart and then part by part we've been manufacturing it for them," Amaero's business development manager Ben Batagol said.

"We've now printed two engines."

The first took the company about 12 months to develop, but the second was made in as little as three months.

One engine has already been delivered to Safran in France, while the other is currently on display at the Avalon Airshow.

"We're going to be doing a third engine potentially that will be light weight, so we'll take all the material out and look at making it a light weight engine," Mr Batagol said.

He said the development would open the door for engineers to make and test parts in days instead of months.

"3D printing allows us to make very complex parts, that we have trouble casting on machining right now, in a very quick fashion," he said.

"Suddenly we can cut down production time, from say 13 steps that it may take to make a singular part, to just one step.

"We're able to be quite complementary to a traditional manufactured product. We can quickly do a prototype of a part. If a customer makes a request for a part in the morning I can be printing that part and have it potentially finished the next day."

Amaero is about to expand its Notting Hill factory in Melbourne's south-east.

"We've got four machines in our workshop and we're about to double our floor space and increase our machines," Mr Batagol said.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald