NASA Uses 3D Printing to Make Lighter Rocket Parts
Engineers at NASA have managed to construct lighter rocket parts that don't melt using 3D printing and a novel variant of aluminum.
The space agency teamed up with additive manufacturer Elementum 3D to develop a rocket engine nozzle made out of aluminum. The advantage of using aluminum is how lightweight it is compared to other metals, but it has a low tolerance to extreme heat and cracks during welding, which has always ruled it out as an option in the past. That's where 3D printing comes in.
As part of the Reactive Additive Manufacturing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (RAMFIRE) project, funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), a novel aluminum variant called A6061-RAM2 was developed to suit the additive manufacturing technique. RTM Innovations, which specializes in directed energy deposition, used the aluminum variant along with a specialized powder to build the nozzle using laser powder directed energy deposition (LP-DED) technology.
The key to overcoming aluminum's heat and welding limitations was introducing small internal channels within the nozzle structure to keep the temperature below the metal's melting point. And as the nozzle is 3d printed, there is just one part so no bonding required and manufacturing time is reduced significantly. In contrast, conventional nozzle manufacturing requires thousands of parts that need to be joined together.
These new RAMFIRE nozzles have completed multiple hot-fire tests and survived 22 starts and nearly 10 minutes of runtime while under more than 825 pounds per square inch of pressure. That's more than the expected stress rocket nozzles will be subjected to in deep space.
Paul Gradl, RAMFIRE principal investigator at NASA Marshall, said "After
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