/ News
Both GE and Rolls Royce Are To Use 3D Printing To Make Jet Engines And Violate Engineering's Prime Commandment
There is an old and important saying in engineering: fast, better, cheaper. The point being that you can only ever have two out of the three. But in this pair of tales about how both GE and Rolls Royce are to be using 3D printing in order to produce their respective jet engines we’ve an interesting violation of that basic engineering commandment.
Here’s the GE story:
General Electric GE 0% (GE), on the hunt for ways to build more than 85,000 fuel nozzles for its new Leap jet engines, is making a big investment in 3D printing. Usually the nozzles are assembled from 20 different parts. Also known as additive manufacturing, 3D printing can create the units in one metal piece, through a successive layering of materials. The process is more efficient and can be used to create designs that can’t be made using traditional techniques, GE says. The finished product is stronger and lighter than those made on the assembly line and can withstand the extreme temperatures (up to 2,400F) inside an engine.
This is 3D printing using metals of course, not the plastics that most of the home and small business printers are currently using. But do note that they are claiming that the new process is both more efficient (that is, cheaper) and also better, in that they can create more complex parts this way. And then there’s the Rolls Royce side of the story:
Rolls-Royce is looking to use 3D printers to make lighter components for its aircraft engines, the company’s head of technology strategy has said.
Henner Wapenhans said the new technology could allow the manufacturer to produce parts more quickly, slashing lead times, the Financial Times reported.
“3D printing opens up new possibilities, new design space,” Dr Wapenhans said. “Through the 3D printing process, you’re not constrained [by] having to get a tool in to create a shape. You can create any shape you like.
The point here being that they can now do things faster. For, in order to make these metal parts in the traditional manner you need first to have the tool made, that is, the form by which you will make the part. And that process can take 18 months to go through all of the necessary iterations.
Putting the two stories together we can thus see that 3D printing is going to allow faster, better andcheaper: a direct violation of that basic engineering commandment. But no, this isn’t a miracle, nor even a refutation of the rule. For what is left unsaid in the only being able to have two of the three is “using current technologies”. We’re limited when we use traditional techniques to gaining only two of the three things we desire, yes, but as every engineer knows if you can bring in some entirely new method of doing things you can indeed gain the entire trinity.
Which brings us to an interesting little end note. If traditional techniques can only bring us two of the three and we would need a breakthrough in technology in order to gain all of those three then….if we’ve a technology that can provide all three then we do have a breakthrough in technology. I’ve previously been rather dismissive of 3D printing as I’ve thought that there’s a limit, and a low one, to the number of things that people will want to print out of plastic at home. But seeing it being used at the very esoteric end of the jet engine business is revising that view somewhat. I now think it’s going to be a bigger thing than I previously did.
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/12/02/both-ge-and-rolls-royce-are-to-use-3d-printing-to-make-jet-engines-by-violating-enginererings-prime-commandment/
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
/ Follow us at:
/ Contact:
For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Я.ру
ВКонтакте
Mail.ru