Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President, said, “Aerojet Rocketdyne has made several major upgrades to the RL10 to enhance the engine’s performance and affordability since it first entered service in the early 1960s. Incorporating additive manufacturing into the RL10 is the next logical step as we look to make the engine even more affordable for our customers.”
The RL10 thrust chamber assembly was built from a copper alloy, using SLM technology. The Defense Production Act Title III program management office, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, enabled the recent hot-fire test of the assembly. The thrust chamber of the current RL10C-1 model design uses a complex array of brazed-together hydroformed, drawn stainless tubes; the 3D printed RL10 copper thrust chamber would replace this model.
The design, which is made of just two primary copper parts, reduces the overall production lead time, as it can be additively manufactured in less than a month. In comparison with traditionally manufactured RL10 thrust chambers, the 3D printed RL10 copper thrust chamber, with lower complexity and cost, has a significantly reduced part count of over 90%. 3D printing also allows manufacturers to design and build more advanced features that are desirable to the aerospace industry, such as improved heat transfer, which in turn makes for a lighter, more compact engine.
“We believe this is the largest copper-alloy thrust chamber ever built with 3-D printing and successfully tested. Producing aerospace-quality components with additive manufacturing is challenging. Producing them with a high-thermal-conductivity copper alloy using SLM technology is even more difficult. Infusing this technology into full-scale rocket engines is truly transformative as it opens up new design possibilities for our engineers and paves the way for a new generation of low-cost rocket engines,” said Additive Manufacturing Program Manager Jeff Haynes.
RL10 Program Director Christine Cooley said, “”This full-scale RL10 thrust chamber test series further proves that additive manufacturing technology will enable us to continue to deliver high performance and reliability while substantially reducing component production costs. Now that we have validated our approach with full-scale testing of a 3-D printed injector and copper thrust chamber, we are positioned to qualify a new generation of RL10 engines at a much lower cost; largely attributed to the additive manufacturing capabilities we have developed and demonstrated. With the next generation of RL10 engines, we aim to maintain the reliability and performance that our customers have come to expect, while at the same time making the engine more affordable to meet the demands of today’s marketplace.”
Discuss in the Aerojet Rocketdyne forum at 3DPB.com.
[Sources/Images: Aerojet Rocketdyne]