3 ms·
Huh, my gut feeling is the opposite. The printers are going to make the exact same rocket every time. And you could anneal the rocket after, which would impro
by andbberger 9y ago
Huh, my gut feeling is the opposite.
The printers are going to make the exact same rocket every time.
And you could anneal the rocket after, which would improve the strength.
Also spacex seems to be doing it with their Dragon engine. Is there another rocket part that undergoes more strain? (vocab cringe, not a materials scientist)
- zardo 9y agoThe superdraco engines in Dragon have a printed combustion chamber. But these are (relatively) low pressure engines. Chamber pressure is limited by the fuel injection pressure. The simplest, fastest response time way to provide the fuel pressure is to use a high pressure bottle of gas to push the fuel through. Since those are important features in a launch escape system, that's how superdracos work. But... chamber pressure is directly correlated with efficiency, so a main engine uses an extremely powerful fuel pump to achieve higher pressures. That fuel pump is itself, a rocket engine with a gas pressure fuel system like the superdracos.