I-Corps: Rapid Manufacturing for High Efficiency Heat Exchangers

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

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.