Pipe 2TE 3D Printing Goes Heavy Duty - Complex Metal Parts for Power Generation Equipment

3D Printing Goes Heavy Duty - Complex Metal Parts for Power Generation Equipment

by
in hardware on (#2TE)
An article in Power Magazine discusses how manufacturers of power generating equipment are planning to use 3D printing in metal for production of complex machinery parts:

Siemens announced in December that it would begin using 3D printing - also known as additive manufacturing - to produce replacement burner components for gas turbines rather than using conventional methods. It said that for certain types of turbines, repair times can be cut by as much as 90%.

Meanwhile, GE Aviation announced that it would contract with Swedish company Arcam to produce 3D-printed components for its jet engines. Its oil and gas division plans to start pilot production of 3D-printed gas turbines fuel nozzles later this year. With conventional manufacturing methods, the nozzles are assembled from 20 separate parts, but with 3D printing, they can be created in a single piece.

NASA used similar methods previously to manufacture parts for the J2-X engine, according to this article at Extreme Tech . So, how far will this technology spread? How long will it be before consumer-oriented metal objects are being printed just-in-time at your local department store?

History


Deprecated: mb_convert_encoding(): Handling HTML entities via mbstring is deprecated; use htmlspecialchars, htmlentities, or mb_encode_numericentity/mb_decode_numericentity instead in /var/pipedot/include/diff.php on line 25

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property FineDiff::$granularityStack is deprecated in /var/pipedot/lib/finediff/finediff.php on line 217

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property FineDiff::$edits is deprecated in /var/pipedot/lib/finediff/finediff.php on line 218

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property FineDiff::$from_text is deprecated in /var/pipedot/lib/finediff/finediff.php on line 219

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property FineDiff::$last_edit is deprecated in /var/pipedot/lib/finediff/finediff.php on line 372

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property FineDiff::$stackpointer is deprecated in /var/pipedot/lib/finediff/finediff.php on line 373

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property FineDiff::$from_offset is deprecated in /var/pipedot/lib/finediff/finediff.php on line 375

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property FineDiffCopyOp::$len is deprecated in /var/pipedot/lib/finediff/finediff.php on line 155
2014-02-25 04:54
3D Printing Goes Heavy Duty - Complex Metal Parts for Power Generation Equipment
bryan@pipedot.org
An article in Power Magazine discusses how manufacturers of power generating equipment are planning to use 3D printing in metal for production of complex machinery parts:

Siemens announced in December that it would begin using 3D printing - also known as additive manufacturing - to produce replacement burner components for gas turbines rather than using conventional methods. It said that for certain types of turbines, repair times can be cut by as much as 90%.

Meanwhile, GE Aviation announced that it would contract with Swedish company Arcam to produce 3D-printed components for its jet engines. Its oil and gas division plans to start pilot production of 3D-printed gas turbines fuel nozzles later this year. With conventional manufacturing methods, the nozzles are assembled from 20 separate parts, but with 3D printing, they can be created in a single piece.

NASA used similar methods previously to manufacture parts for the J2-X engine, according to this article at Extreme Tech . So, how far will this technology spread? How long will it be before consumer-oriented metal objects are being printed just-in-time at your local department store?
Reply 0 comments