| Title | Jet Engine Parts 3D Printed With Electron Gun | |
| Date | Thursday August 21 2014, @02:42PM | |
| Author | janrinok | |
| Topic | ||
| from the pew,-pew,-pew! dept. | ||
According to the article on Engineering.com Italian aerospace company Avio (a part of GE Aviation) is using an electron gun 10 times more powerful than the laser beams currently used for printing metal parts to fabricate blades for jet engine turbines.
The material used is called titanium aluminide (TiAl) which is 50 percent lighter than the nickel-based alloys typically used for low pressure turbine blades. But titanium aluminide is also notoriously hard to work with. Companies normally use lost-wax casting or spin casting to make TiAl parts. However, the material has a very high contraction ratio and can become fragile and prone to cracks as it cools.
The electron beam melting or EBM technology created by Avio together with Sweden's Arcam solves these problems.
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printed from SoylentNews, Jet Engine Parts 3D Printed With Electron Gun on 2024-04-20 12:55:12