The recent growth in additive manufacturing technologies has opened many avenues for new and improved rocket components. Previously expensive parts and components requiring the assembly of individually machined parts can now be "3D" printed in most aerospace grade materials. Such advancements contrast with a relatively stagnant number of options to generate hybrid grains with complex shapes or grains augmented with energetic additives. In the graduate level class project summarized in this paper, a team of six students designed, built, and tested a 3D printer dedicated to the production of such complex hybrid grains. Starting with a one-sentence objective at the start of the Spring 2014 semester, the team learned about current additive manufacturing options, established a set of design requirements satisfying existing test facilities at Purdue University, and developed a 3D printer for paraffin wax hybrid grains. Following the calibration of the many subsystems in the printer, a 9 inch long grain was printed by depositing 72 layers of paraffin onto one another. Fired at the Maurice Zucrow Laboratories in an existing combustor, the grain developed a smooth steady state chamber pressure of 300 psia thus proving the printer operation and opening many opportunities for grains augmented with energetic additives.
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