MiTi® is partnering with Velo3D to incorporate additive manufacturing (3D printing) methods and techniques into the development of high-speed turbomachinery. Additive manufacturing has the potential to reduce cost and time to produce turbomachinery parts and can allow for geometries that are impractical or even impossible to manufacture using conventional machining.
Compressor Housing
MiTi®‘s first project with Velo3D was the development of a prototype compressor housing for supercritical CO2 concentrated solar power plants. The innovative housing that MiTi® engineers designed, using MiTi®‘s proprietary oil-free bearing technology, has a unique and complex internal structure and must operate under extremes of temperature and pressure, making it difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to manufacture using conventional casting and machining. Velo3D was able to print the housing in 3.5 days rather than 20 weeks and for a fifth the cost.
Impellers
Encouraged by the success of the compressor housing, MiTi® and Velo3D have printed experimental impellers for high and ultra-high temperature anode gas recycle blowers (ARCB). The complex geometry of impellers presents difficulty in manufacturing by conventional machining. MiTi® is currently characterizing the material properties and characteristics of the first round of Velo3D-printed impellers with the view toward improving aerodynamic efficiency.