The Australian team behind the world-first 3D-printed jet engine has launched a new venture to manufacture components for a leading French aerospace company.
Melbourne-based Amaero Engineering — a spin out company from Monash University’s innovation cluster — has signed an agreement with the University and Safran Power Units to print turbojet components for Safran, the French aerospace and defence company.
The world’s first 3D-printed jet engine was revealed to the world at the 2015 Melbourne International Airshow. The team, which included Safran, Monash University and Amaero, in collaboration with Deakin University and the CSIRO, took a Safran gas turbine power unit from a Falcon executive jet, scanned it and created two copies using their customised 3D metal printers. This research is now being extended further.
“We proved that our team were world-leaders,” said Professor Xinhua Wu, Director of the Monash Centre for Additive Manufacturing. “I’m delighted to see our technology leap from the laboratory to a factory at the heart of Europe’s aerospace industry in Toulouse.”
Amaero will establish a new manufacturing facility on the Safran Power Units site in Toulouse using a 3D printing technology known as Selective Laser Melting. They will not only bring the know-how and intellectual property they’ve developed in partnership with Monash University, they will also relocate two of the large printers they have customised for this manufacturing task.
Safran Power Units will test and validate the components the team makes, and then the factory will enter serial production, producing components that Safran Power Units will post process, machine and assemble into auxiliary power units and turbojet engines for commercial and defence use. The project team expect that production will commence in the first quarter of 2017.
“Our new facility will be embedded within the Safran Power Units factory in Toulouse and will make components for Safran’s auxiliary power units and turbojet engines,” said Amaero CEO Barrie Finnin.
[One of the first 3D-printed jet engines. Photo: Monash University]