Rolls-Royce Advance 3 engine success with 3-D printed parts

One company taking advantage of 3D printing is Rolls Royce. Their Advance3 engine is revolutionising the future of civil aerospace with 3D printed parts and introducing new materials to lead the way.

The Advance3 engine has incorporated around 20,000 parts and has achieved more than 100 hours from testing. This has proven excellent performance from parts made by a printing technique known as additive layer manufacturing (3D printing) and also made from ceramic matrix composites.

Ash Owen, Rolls-Royce, Chief Engineer, Civil Aerospace Demonstrator Programmes, said: “Testing so far has been completely seamless, which is an outstanding achievement when you realise that this is an engine incorporating a range of new technologies as well as a brand new core architecture. We have completed our first phase of testing and analysing the results right now. We like what we see from the CMC and ALM parts performance. ”