question about real saturn v rocket (not model)

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MostafaAwad

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2016
Messages
54
Reaction score
0
With additive and other manufacturing technologies advancing, rocket engines are incorporating elements like 3D printed parts. which materials can be 3D printed versus which ones will need to be manufactured elsewhere and incorporated into the rocket ?
plz i need help ,, i have a quiz
 
I suppose that would depend on what kind of performance characteristics you are looking to achieve.
For maximum altitude, obviously none of the components should be 3D printed, as 3D printing uses plastic which is heavy.
If you want a static model, the whole thing could be 3D printed.
I don't have much experience with 3D printed parts, but I was once given some 3D printed camera shrouds, and decided they were too heavy to use, so I re-gifted them to someone who flies more powerful rockets.
 
As you are talking about real vs model rockets, I think you'll find SpaceX is a real good example for using 3D printing. My understanding is that 3D printed parts could all be produced by normal construction techniques, it's just simpler and less labour intensive to use a 3D printer. It also lends itself well to rapid prototyping. 3D printing is not limited just plastics, I know that SpaceX is using them on their rocket engines. I believe their superdrago engines are actually entirely 3D printed. I would expect however that there are limitations on very high performance components where 3D printing would not be suitable.
 
3D printed parts are already being used in and on many Real Space vehicles. As mentioned Space-X use a number of 3D printed parts.
the International space station now has 3- 3D printers on-board used to reproduce many parts & Items for the station.
 
Typically the plumbing (fuel and LOX lines, as well as ancillary lines) will continue to be manufactured and bent, although in some cases likely bent via automation.

Sometimes the question isn't decided by the available technology, but the economics of the available technology. Just because you can 3D print will not automatically make it better if the material, surface finish does not meet specifications, or cannot meet schedule.

For economics, you want to by as much "off the shelf" technology that you can get away with (not that there is really a lot of that for rocket engines).

Greg
 
Pretty much anything can be 3d printed. Lay people see 3d printing as depositing layers of plastic, in reality "additive manufacturing" can be done with nearly any material these days. I have seen additive manufacturing of plastics, concrete, ceramics, paper, metals, and many others. The super drago engines are 100% 3D printed from a high performance alloy, I believe Inconel. Further additive manufacturing can produce geometries that would be nearly impossible (especially with good control of surface finishes and voids) with traditional methods. Internal features that would not be possible to machine can be printed, including completely contained internal hollow features to reduce weight. Below is a video of my personal favorite machine, it combines plasma deposition additive manufacturing (which can be used for most metals) and traditional high speed machining to make parts that otherwise would be impractical to make.

[video=youtube_share;ndx-amkf4qU]https://youtu.be/ndx-amkf4qU[/video]
 
Last edited:
With additive and other manufacturing technologies advancing, rocket engines are incorporating elements like 3D printed parts. which materials can be 3D printed versus which ones will need to be manufactured elsewhere and incorporated into the rocket ?
plz i need help ,, i have a quiz
Well good luck with your quiz, nice that you got a bunch of others the help out with the answers.

3D printers work best for ... wait for it.... 3D parts!

By that I mean parts that have volume and depth, like the rocket engines. Something that is mostly a 2D structure, like the tanks, are better off made via conventional means.

There are new 3D printers that incorporate a CNC head that allows interior surfaces of parts like turbine pumps to be finished to extremely high degrees of accuracy and surface smoothness than normal 3D printing processes. The same parts can't be made via traditional CNC as they have interior spaces that a CNC machine can't make.

Think: small and very complex - 3D printed; large and simple - traditional manufacturing


Tony
 
13063281_939807629465826_6092372069693246047_o.jpg

THX FOR ALL ,, with your help i passed the quiz and i succeed ,, thx very very much for all ,,, this is my favorite forum :)
i hope to be good friend in this forum :)
sorry for my english language ,, its not well :blush:
 
Ravenex:

I somehow missed your post when I did mine. You are right about the Inconel. That video was mesmerizing - pretty amazing to see such a sophisticated process in action. I bet that finished part isn't cheap!

Gotta love German, some of those words are as entertaining as the video.


Tony
 
Last edited:
When I was in the military our engineering contractor would always say, "We can do whatever you want, all it takes is time and money".
 
The biggest problem prototyping on that scale is the whole "Reset to position 1, and do it again!"
That whole end of the base may need to be rebuilt, depending on failure mode.:)
 
Back
Top