GE has additively manufactured a working miniature jet engine
and tested it at 33,000 RPM.
CNet and others report that the “fun side project” – as one
engineer called it – was about a foot long, and modelled on a remote controlled
aircraft engine.
The prototype was the work of machinists, engineers and technicians at the GE Aviation’s Additive Development Centre at Ohio. An EOS
M270 machine, which uses direct metal sintering, was used to create the 12-part
machine.
According to GE, “high-strength, high-temperature alloys”
were used in the project’s creation.
The mini-engine comes after Monash University and Amaero’s project for France Safran, to build 3D printed metal replicas of their gas turbine jet
engines, made international news in February.