Manufacturing of Closed Impeller for Mechanically Pump Fluid Loop Systems Using Selective Laser Melting Additive Manufacturing Technology.

In the space industry, the market demand for high-pressure mechanically pumped fluid loop (MPFL) systems has increased the interest for integrating advanced technologies in the manufacturing process of critical components with complex geometries. The conventional manufacturing process of a closed impeller encounters different technical challenges, but using additive manufacturing (AM) technology, the small component is printed, fulfilling the quality requirements. This paper presents the Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) process of a closed impeller designed for a centrifugal pump integrated in an MPFL system with the objective of defining a complete manufacturing process.

Novel Carbon Fibre Composite Centrifugal Impeller Design, Numerical Analysis, Manufacturing and Experimental Evaluations.

This paper presents an experimental investigation on using high strength-to-weight composite materials to reduce the mass of a centrifugal compressor impeller by 600%. By reducing the blades number from 17 to 7 and by doubling their thickness, the compression ratio and efficiency were maintained close to the reference metallic impeller. Using autoclave technology, seven composite blades were manufactured individually and assembled to form the impeller.

A Study on Using the Additive Manufacturing Process for the Development of a Closed Pump Impeller for Mechanically Pumped Fluid Loop Systems.

The efficiency of a centrifugal pump for mechanical pump fluid loops, apart from the design, relies on the performance of the closed impeller which is linked to the manufacturing process in terms of dimensional accuracy and the surface quality. Therefore, the activities of this paper were focused on defining the manufacturing process of a closed impeller using the additive manufacturing technology for mechanically pumped fluid loop (MPFL) systems in space applications. Different building orientations were studied to fabricate three closed impellers using selective laser melting technology and were subjected to dimensional accuracy and surface quality evaluations in order to identify the optimal building orientation.