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sequ

Captain
Registered Member
You yourself said "bigger engine than F-16" ... so why is this an unjustified question?
Nope. I quoted Prof Kotil:
The CEO of TAI said this about it more than a year ago:

Like I said, strawman. Read better before replying and lurk more. Ask questions in good faith as it suits someone from your stature better.

And clean up this thread from troll posts will ya?
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Yeah I agree. That is what makes most sense for them in the current environment.
Use 3D printing with titanium powder and make it that way. The whole aerospace industry is moving in that direction.
It has the added advantage with the same tooling you can make a quick change to a design and the same tool will still be able to make. It will also use less titanium (an expensive metal) than a subtractive method would.

From what I’ve read on PDF, the electron beam 3D printing process is different from that of laser based process. Instead of using titanium power they melt thing titanium wires in a vacuum.
 
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taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
The CEO of TAI said this about it more than a year ago: "The MMU has bigger engine than the two F16 engines. We use a lot of titanium for this. It is necessary to press a titanium piece of five meters by seven meters. A few countries in the world have this press, but they do not press it for us. We will do it with a three-dimensional printer, under vacuum. (...) We are currently purchasing 3D printer titanium technology. Innovation is needed for work that we have cannot do. We cannot go down this (MMU) road without innovation.”


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So it is clear for the moment:
  1. The bulkhead is to be an one piece 5 by 7 meters.
  2. TAI can not get the forging press of this size.
  3. TAI is trying to buy 3D printing of Electron Beam Melting tech from abroad.
This means that TAI does not have such 3D printing capability yet. So for the moment it is clear that the photos are of demo/mockup, not real product for MMU. I doubt they are 3D printed at all.

I do wonder how or where TAI is trying to purchase this 3D printer if foreign countries are not willing to offer the forging tech to TAI. Both forging and 3D printing of this type of product is of the highest sensitivity.
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
I suspect a larger printer would cost insanely more to acquire because of limited sales. They likely are using this to characterize the production process, test it for viability, and once it is given the go ahead for production and more funding they would buy a larger printer. Since this piece is probably symmetric the full piece shouldn't have much different characteristics. I guess.
Building a larger sized printer itself is actually less an issue compared to increased challenge of temperature control. The problem is that when increased size, the scanner will take much longer time to scan one layer by square. For example, 1X1 meter takes 10 seconds per layer, 2X2 would take 40 seconds. This means when the last portion is printed, the first partion has cooled down a lot. This create inconsistent temperature in different areas, some has crystallized, some are still in liquid form. This is the challenge to overcome before bigger piece can be made. The challenge is about fine tuning the timing, speed of the printing process independent of the size. As far as I know, China is the only country that has overcome this problem in Laser based addictive method which enabled big piece. There are many papers talking about how it is done, such as the paper about "laser melting/printing plus localized forging" as one example. I haven't heard any other country able to do it including the US who started 3D printing earlier than China.

Since sequ has said that TAI is trying to purchase 3D printing from other country, it is clear that they don't have such capability or facility to test the product process.
 

sequ

Captain
Registered Member
This means that TAI does not have such 3D printing capability yet.
Well the statement itself was made over a year ago and they were in the process of purchasing it. I lean towards them already having it by now, unless stated otherwise.

If not successful, they can always revert back to good old aluminum alloy.
 

Overbom

Brigadier
Registered Member
So it is clear for the moment:
  1. The bulkhead is to be an one piece 5 by 7 meters.
  2. TAI can not get the forging press of this size.
  3. TAI is trying to buy 3D printing of Electron Beam Melting tech from abroad.
This means that TAI does not have such 3D printing capability yet. So for the moment it is clear that the photos are of demo/mockup, not real product for MMU. I doubt they are 3D printed at all.

I do wonder how or where TAI is trying to purchase this 3D printer if foreign countries are not willing to offer the forging tech to TAI. Both forging and 3D printing of this type of product is of the highest sensitivity.
Not an expert on 3D printing but from what I remember the most advanced 3D printer companies are in US, UK, China, France, Germany, S.Korea

What Turkey wants is aerospace grade 3D printing which some of the above countries might not have available
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
From what I’ve read on PDF, the electron beam 3D printing process is different from that of laser based process. Instead of using titanium power they melt thing titanium wires in a vacuum.
Both laser and electron beam based methods can use wire or powder.
Laser:
Powder: Selective Laser Melting (SLM)
Wire or Powder: Laser Solid Forming (LSF)
Electron beam:
Wire: Electron Beam Fabrication (EBF)
Power: Electron Beam Melting (EBM)
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
Well the statement itself was made over a year ago and they were in the process of purchasing it. I lean towards them already having it by now, unless stated otherwise.

If not successful, they can always revert back to good old aluminum alloy.
That is overly optimistic. I would say that "they don't have it by now unless showing a full-sized product otherwise". This kind of tech is on the same level of jet engine, one can always ask to buy, but no country is going to sell (except assembled final product) to any other country.
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
From what I’ve read on PDF, the electron beam 3D printing process is different from that of laser based process. Instead of using titanium power they melt thing titanium wires in a vacuum.
Continue to post 1829,
Laser can also use vacuum chamber to eliminate chance of oxidization. Example is aero structure manufacture equipment by Beihang 4 x 3 x 2 meters.
 
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