I-Corps: Rapid Manufacturing for High Efficiency Heat Exchangers

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是能够更有效地生产类似热交换器的组件（具有复杂的内部几何形状），这些组件目前是时间密集型的，制造成本高。该项目起源于全3D打印火箭发动机研究。该项目为大规模生产液体火箭发动机提供了解决方案，以便更频繁地将基础设施发射到太空。为了满足不断增长的需求，航天工业需要更快的火箭发射速度，将基础设施（如卫星）送入太空。发动机制造技术抑制了运载火箭的生产，这反过来又限制了运载火箭工业满足需求的能力。提供一种快速生产技术来制造大量的高效火箭发动机将使发射成本和生产时间大大减少。快速生产复杂热交换器的商业影响也将使工业界能够简化设计，降低工业应用中生产装置的总成本。制造高效热交换器允许减小部件尺寸生产，这可以减小复杂系统的总质量。高效热交换器的工业应用存在于喷气发动机制造、火力发电厂和大型炼油厂制造行业。该I-Corps项目通过使用专有技术快速生产完全再生冷却的发动机，改进了传统的发动机制造方法，甚至是新的增材制造方法。该技术是一种物理制造和组装工艺，用于最难制造的发动机部件，与现有方法相比，可以将生产时间减少90%，成本降低80%。两个完全3D打印的火箭发动机已经制造和测试。其中一个3D打印火箭发动机是在一个探空火箭上发射的，该火箭是为了作为飞行物品并验证迄今为止的工作而创建的。第三代引擎将改善传统3D金属打印的高孔隙率，众多后处理步骤以及批量和尺寸生产的可扩展性。该团队将致力于解决和解决传统3D金属打印的缺陷，以便大规模生产复杂的热交换器。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project will be to enable more efficient production of heat exchanger-like components (featuring complex internal geometries) that are currently time intensive and costly to manufacture. The project has its origins in fully 3D printed rocket engine research. The project provides a solution for the mass production of liquid rocket engines so that launching infrastructure to space will happen more frequently. In order to meet the backlog from rising demand, the space industry needs a more rapid rate of rocket launches to deliver infrastructure (such as satellites) into space. Engine manufacturing technology has stifled launch vehicle production, which in turn has restricted the ability to meet demand in the launch vehicle industries. Providing a rapid production technique to fabricate large quantities of high efficiency rocket engines will allow launch costs and production time to be reduced significantly. The commercial impact of rapidly producing complex heat exchangers will also allow industries to iterate on designs and decrease total cost for production units in industrial applications. Manufacturing high efficiency heat exchangers allows for decreased component size production which can decrease total mass for complex systems. Industrial applications for high efficiency heat exchangers exist in the jet engine manufacturing, thermal power plant, and large-scale refinery manufacturing industries.This I-Corps project improves upon conventional engine manufacturing methods and even new additive manufacturing methods by using a proprietary technology to quickly produce fully regeneratively cooled engines. The technology is a physical fabrication and assembly process for the hardest-to-manufacture engine components that can decrease production time by 90% and cost by 80%, respectively, compared to current methods. Two fully 3D printed rocket engines have been fabricated and tested. One of the 3D printed rocket engines was launched on a sounding rocket e created to serve as a flight article and validate the work to date. The third-generation engine will improve upon conventional 3D metal printing deficiencies of high porosity, numerous post processing steps, and scalability in both volume and size production. The team will work to address and account for the deficiencies with conventional 3D metal printing to allow for mass production of complex heat exchangers.