Case Study

Aerospace Fuel System Part

Size: 5.0 lbs
Alloy: 17-4
*Notes: Using 2 prototype processes for one part

An existing customer needed to make spare fuel system parts for a defense aerospace project. With only a print from the 1970’s that was faded and barely readable and used part that appeared to come from a crash site, the customer and TPM went to work. Using the print and the used part a reverse engineering 3D Cad file was created. As you can see from the photo the cores for the inner passageways are quite complex. The government only needs 4-5 parts so expensive core tolling was not an option. Working with a Rapid Prototype printing company TPM had the ceramic cores printed and then a printed wax pattern was printed around the cores.

TPM cast a dozen parts so our customer had enough parts to do some “practice” machining iterations. From the time the 3D Cad file was approved to a cast and heat-treated part being delivered was 4 weeks.

It turns out there is a great need for spare parts in our military establishment, many time with very old prints or no prints at all to accompany an old used part. It is likely that this is true for dozens of other industries too. Some ‘good old engineering computer crunching effort’ to create cad files, and a foundry ready to step up and take on a challenge is the answer. TPM is happy to be part of this solution.

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