Hi Team,
I want to share with the community that I have printed an interesting model of a Jet Engine. I thought you may be interested in this fun project. Regards, Rene
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I 3D printed a Jet engine on a hobby 3D printer (QIDI) that I purchased last month. This is a 2-spool high pass turbofan. The geometry for the Jet Engine was designed in CATIAv5. This is not a replica of a commercial engine and uses visual cues from popular existing engines. An engineer from Gulfstream Aerospace designed this mockup geometry (Located in GrabCAD).
There are over 50 printed parts. I think this took me over 150 hours to print! The Turbo Fan (Black) alone took 20 hours to print. This gives you an idea how long it takes for the part files. Couple of years ago AM was everywhere in the tech news. I have always had an interest and finally purchased a cheap 3D Printer for a hobby. I am a 3D printing ‘newbie’ and learned a lot. I have a boneyard of bad prints in the corner of my office to remind me of what not to do. I must admit, 3D Printing is not a press a button and print a nice geometry. After poor prints, you have to research why you received poor results and tweak the slicer software. Facebook groups has a great group of experts to provide advice. Oh, the process of printing a file is: Geometry (ie CATIA/SW) => export a STL File=> Slicer Software.
What is slicer software? This was new to me. In a nutshell, "slicing" your 3D model means taking your design (. stl format) and slicing it into individual layers. The software then generates the tool path (.gcode) the printer will use for printing. Most slicing software will have a print preview function to help you prevent print failures. You have many control settings like temperature of the filament (I used PLA), placing supports, infill, etc. Therefore, there is a lot of tweaking variable.
This was a fun project that I wanted to share with you.
The Two Stages (HPC and LPT) rotate independent using bearings.
- Used PLA (Polylactic acid)
- 50 Parts
- Over 150 hours print time
- 4 Bearings
- 70 fasteners
- Length: 18 inches
- Weight: 2.25lbs = 1025grams
- Cost (not including fasteners and bearings) = 1,000 grams of PLA (plastic) is \$20.00
Jet Engine Color Code:
- Blue: High-pressure compressor (HPC)
- Maroon: Low Pressure Turbine (LPT)
- Copper: High Pressure Stator & Fuel Injectors
- Black: Fan
- Silver: Shaft
- Yellow: Combustor (Middle of part)