It was a challenge for the team and pushed the technology to new heights of success – no one has printed an entire engine commercially yet, "said Ben Batagol, of Amaero Engineering, the company created by Monash University to make the technology available to Australian industry.Ī huge number of applications for 3D printing are appearing now – from 3D-printed houses made from recycled building materials, to 3D-printed medical implants, 3D-printed electric cars, and even 3D-printed fashion. "The project is a spectacular proof of concept that's leading to significant contracts with aerospace companies. Then we printed two copies."Ĭoncept Laser's X line 1000R 3D printer - the largest laser metal melting machine in the world MCAM So we took the engine to pieces and scanned the components.
"But when we reviewed the plans we realised that the engine had evolved over years of manufacture. "It was our chance to prove what we could do," says Professor Xinhua Wu, the director of the Monash Centre for Additive Manufacturing, who has 25 years' experience in the aerospace industry. Then they printed out two units consisting of 14 major components using the Concept Laser's X line 1000R 3D printer – the world's biggest laser metal melting 3D printer that enables tool-less manufacturing of large components and has a huge build space of 630mm x 400mm x 500mm. Since the engine is an old design with no computerised drawings, the researchers took the engine apart and 3D-scanned each component so that they could analyse how the final product would fit together. It is used to power slightly older aircraft like the business jet Dassault Falcon 20. The gas turbine engine chosen to be 3D-printed was a small auxiliary power unit provided by French aircraft and rocket engine manufacturer Safran. Close-up of the 3D-printed engine, on show at the International Air Show in Avalon, Australia MCAM
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