[HN Gopher] We just built the world's largest 3D-printed aerospi...
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We just built the world's largest 3D-printed aerospike rocket
engine
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 50 points
Date : 2022-11-21 17:10 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hyperganic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hyperganic.com)
| clivefx wrote:
| Looks quite heavy compared to a standard nozzle.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Standard nozzles are quite heavy as well.
|
| It's entirely possible that this aerospike engine is actually
| lighter because they don't need large nozzles and nozzle
| extensions and are more efficient
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| This looks like a fantastically useful technology and I am
| reminded of the fact that when FDM 3D printers were under patent,
| they cost $25,000, and ten years after the patents expired they
| cost $250. I believe some key metal 3D printing patents recently
| expired, but I suspect much of this process is still patented,
| making it unnecessarily expensive. I would love to see this kind
| of tech become ubiquitous and affordable to everyone, and this
| will not happen until the patents are fully expired and we see
| genuine competition in the space.
|
| I guess I should preempt a couple of the most common responses I
| get to this view:
|
| First, markets provide first mover advantage even without
| intellectual property restrictions. The idea that governments
| should provide monopoly protections on ideas is anti-competetive
| and anti free market. Libertarians at places like the Mises
| institute recognize this and have some good talks on the subject.
|
| Also, we would not see investment dry up without IP restrictions.
| We would see the nature of investment change from fewer larger
| investments to more smaller investments as competitors race to
| get the latest incremental improvement to market first by seeking
| investment to upgrade production lines, etc.
|
| Workers absolutely deserve to be compensated for their work, but
| we see that in most IP restriction regimes, businesses take all
| the winnings and pay only wages to the workers doing the
| inventing. Individual inventors can still have first mover
| advantage, and I would argue that most new invention is not
| motivated by profit but curiosity. Removing IP restrictions would
| vastly increase invention by curiosity, as there would be far
| more places where a curious engineer could tinker and improve
| something. Imagine that one person invents something and gets a
| patent. This will prevent 100 other people from tinkering and
| improving upon it. This is why I say that the sole function of a
| patent is to reduce innovation - because that is the one literal
| function of them. The supposed follow on effects are more of a
| cultural meme that are often disproved by things like the open
| source movement, which clearly demonstrates that a lot of the
| assumptions around IP restrictions are not strictly true.
|
| Finally, people in foreign countries who cannot afford expensive
| machines like medical scanners etc still deserve to build copies
| of those machines for their own use, but patent harmonization
| laws like TRIPS prevent these sorts of things. The same goes with
| medicine.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| Which machine printed this?
| unwind wrote:
| Maybe something like this: [1]. It looks ... expensive.
|
| [1]: https://amcm.com/machines/amcm-m4k
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| Thanks, looks like that's it:
|
| >The world's biggest 3d-printed rocket engine was printed by
| the AMCM M4K customized machine.
|
| I hope some of this tech comes into the consumer price range
| with little or no post processing involved
| mentos wrote:
| Love how it looks biological and represents a new kind of
| evolution in engineering.
| the8472 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolved_antenna
| moh_maya wrote:
| "Published 11 May 22" -- since then, is there any news of fire
| tests?
|
| I'm sure its cool they've been able to design and 3D print a
| complex structure - however, the company blog appears to only
| link to additive manufacturing companies: I couldn't find a
| subsequent link where this engine has been (even) ground tested,
| demonstrating basic validation of the design in test / fire
| conditions: till that happens, this is just (imo) a cool looking
| untested, unvalidated design and therefore, untested, unvalidated
| algorithmic design..
|
| None of the reports covering this even mention any testing, or
| any anticipated testing. Is it an art piece?
| flaviut wrote:
| It does not work:
| https://twitter.com/linkayser/status/1528050454374109186
|
| This is apparently a demonstration of their geometry software,
| not something that will ever be fired, since they are an
| "organic" modeling company, not a rocket company.
| moh_maya wrote:
| That doesn't make sense to me: why design it if it cannot /
| will not be tested to validate / demonstrate the value of
| their 'algorithmicEngineering'?
|
| How can one make any functional claims of value without some
| functional testing? What am I missing?
| ghostly_s wrote:
| You're missing nothing, it's pure PR fluff.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Perhaps.
|
| We don't know if they sold the design and whether it was
| tested. The design itself is very interesting - in
| particular the complex heat exchange structures.
|
| On it being optimal, or even more efficient, as long as
| it's cheaper to build than a conventional engine, it's
| game.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| we know the engine wasn't tested, and we do not yet have
| enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis that the
| engine is unsold
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think all of that is basically out of scope. I don't
| think they are claiming it is a good design. The
| impressive point is their software can make a design at
| all. It seems like they want to sell it to people that
| will use it to try to make designs that _are_ good
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| algorithmic design on its own, with no further qualifiers
| (like functionality) isn't impressive though, I don't
| think that's the pitch
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Algorithmic design engineering is a fairly mature field
| that's been around for 20 plus years.
|
| Looking at their website, they are simply developing a tool
| for more integrated algorithms from the park level to
| system level.
|
| With this in mind, the the component integration of the
| model itself is extremely impressive and a proof of
| concept. It doesn't matter if it actually works or not,
| that's not really the point.
| _Adam wrote:
| I'm skeptical there's any value being generated here then.
| Who are the customers? How do they know this fancy looking
| biological design is any good at all?
|
| It's fine not to actually test fire it, but in that case
| prove it with simulations. Demonstrate that it's superior to
| existing designs, or at the very least that it's functional.
| moffkalast wrote:
| So in a nutshell I can grab the toroidal aerospike model from
| KSP, print it 1 cm larger and I now have the world's largest
| 3D printed aerospike.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| What's amazing about the linked blob post is that the
| headline is "But Does It Work?" and the word "no" only
| appears once, in the phrase "there's no looking back."
|
| The article asks really tough questions of itself, like "Have
| you tested it, does it work?" and then very carefully does
| not say yes or no. Why ask yourself those questions if you
| don't want to answer them?
|
| Imagine a politician who starts a campaign speech "People are
| asking me, 'Am I a Ghost Wizard?' and here's my answer: ghost
| wizards are valid concerns. This builds upon the latest in
| crytozoological knowledge of supernatural studies. The first
| study of such wizards was conducted in the 1960s and 1970s.
| As I've discussed previously with my constituents, the United
| Nations has previously looked into ghost wizards. In a way,
| it seems that..."
| more_corn wrote:
| The headline needs the word "model". This is not a functional
| engine.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| Lovely!
|
| Does it work?
| more_corn wrote:
| Model
| tintor wrote:
| It is printed out of copper, so no.
| CarVac wrote:
| Copper is a perfectly normal material for rocket engines due
| to high thermal conductivity.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| How do you do comprehensive QA on a 3D printed part with complex
| internal structures like that? Can you X-ray copper? What happens
| to an engine that has a slight void or poor adhesion in a layer,
| does it have a 1% degradation in performance, or does it fail to
| cool effectively and melt during the dangerous part of the
| launch?
| Robotbeat wrote:
| X-ray CT is standard. There's also just borescoping it. You can
| build witness coupons at the same time and test their strength.
| No substitute for test firing the engine. Even operationally,
| you'll want to acceptance fire the engine before putting it on
| a vehicle.
| metal_am wrote:
| This is a huge field in additive manufacturing. One of the most
| promising solutions is in-situ process monitoring to identify
| defects that may occur, often using machine learning.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yes you can x-ray metals like copper. CT would be the best
| choice due to the complex geometry.
|
| Failure modes from any defect would of course depend on the
| scale and type of the defect, and could lead to nothing or
| catastrophic failure
| BobbyJo wrote:
| The first several (10s or even 100s) will be run, most likely
| from test stands, then ripped apart and combed over for hot
| spots and cracks. Id even expect them to build some with
| shittier materials specifically to see how it causes them to
| fail. Rocket engines are a shocking amount of trial and error.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| If they had any intention of actually creating something
| other than a marketing gimmick sure they'd do all that stuff.
| jn5 wrote:
| Maybe using ultrasonic testing during the printing process,
| while the inner parts are still accessible
| hgomersall wrote:
| You can probably build a kind of acoustic signature of the
| whole at various different points in the boundary and check
| each build is sufficiently close to that signature.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://youtu.be/na9acHpi4WQ
|
| https://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/tb/pub/...
| geocrasher wrote:
| TL;DR: We printed a really big, hard to print model aerospike
| engine. This was done to demonstrate how our printing could be
| used in the future to make possible as-yet impossible advances in
| rocket science. It's purely conceptual.
| friesandties wrote:
| This is seriously one of the coolest things I have seen lately.
| Taking a moment to look at the overall engine itself, the nature
| of how you arrive at such eloquently-chaotic beauty, and the
| sheer uniqueness of the damn thing, wow!
|
| Appears to me to be littered with waveguides upon waveguides,
| pinch points, and various irises. This is really cool. Whether it
| works to cool the nozzle down, I feel like the beginning
| simulations could easily yield do more of this, less of that,
| test, and vary in a iterative feedback loop of sorts. Maybe even
| hot gas at tight-knit control, induction loops for moving heat
| inward to segments, or outward? Think of just how fast you could
| build this just by going single-part alone if it works.
| [deleted]
| teruakohatu wrote:
| According to Wikipedia (and the article itself), cooling the
| aerospike is main problem with this type of engine
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine
|
| Does anyone know how this design solves the problem?
| metal_am wrote:
| The idea is additive manufacturing allows for more complex
| internal geometries, i.e. cooling channels.
| pengaru wrote:
| "We just built the world's largest 3D-printed aerospike rocket
| engine."
|
| Where's the built engine? All I see in TFA is an individual
| complex 3d-printed component, seemingly just cutaway versions at
| that. Not a built engine.
| fudged71 wrote:
| Likely more of an artpiece for the tradeshow than anything else.
| For the RAPID tradeshow you see plenty of intricate prints like
| this showing off the capabilities of different AM processes. This
| one being hosted at the EOS booth is showing off the AMCM
| customizable platform. Printed aerospikes have been tested a
| bunch already but none of them are market ready.
| autokad wrote:
| This is pure PR fluff. if a company you dont already know says
| they have an aerospike engine, you should already be skeptical. a
| 3D printed one? Ok now you know its bunk. a small deep dive
| proves that.
| abudabi123 wrote:
| Will an aerospike engine have more safety margin using the
| SpaceX fuel mix and not the hydrogen type maintank on Artemis I
| with all the fuel leak complications the media could not see
| because the "funnies" would embarass the lawyers and accounting
| arranging the "goofproofers" in the KSP simulation?
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2022-11-21 23:00 UTC)