London: A liquid rocket engine — similar to the kind used by pioneering space companies such as SpaceX — has been built using 3D printing by students of a UK university.
The ‘SunFire’ engine, developed by a team of engineering and science students of the University of Sheffield, is the first metallic 3D printed liquid rocket engine to be built and successfully tested by students in the UK.
“It’s the most powerful student-built engine of its type – an engine that uses both fuel and an oxidiser rather than breathing in oxygen like a jet engine. It’s also the first that is regen-cooled – an engine that uses fuel to cool the combustion chamber before it is burnt, which increases the engine’s efficiency and saves weight,” the University said in a release Tuesday.
The Sheffield students have successfully hot fired – or tested – the engine as part of a week-long competition called Race to Space, in which teams of students from universities across the UK tested rocket engines they have built over the last two academic years.
The Race to Space competition week is believed to have set an unofficial world record itself, for the number of different hybrid/liquid rocket engines hot-fired for the first time on one site in one week.
There are only a handful of liquid rocket engines made by students throughout Europe and even fewer regen engines worldwide, and until now, none in the UK made by 3D printing or as powerful as the engine built at Sheffield.
The Sheffield students built the engine over the last two years outside of their studies as part of the University of Sheffield’s Space Initiative – a programme to help STEM students use their skills to tackle some of the space industry’s biggest challenges and help them develop careers in the industry after graduation.
Dr Alistair John, Deputy Director of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Sheffield, who supervised the team, said: “Additive manufacturing (3D printing) is increasingly being used by rocket companies such as SpaceX as it allows you to build complex, lightweight custom geometries that would not be possible using traditional methods.”
The SunFire engine was test fired at Airborne Engineering at the Westcott Space Cluster and 3D printed at the Satellite Applications Catapult.
PTI
