Integration of Three-Dimensional Printing Technology for Wind-Tunnel Model Fabrication

摘要

Nowadays, rapid manufacturing techniques have opened a new era in aerospace industry. Wind-tunnel testingnmodels have the most application in this industry, and different manufacturing techniques are used for productionnpurposes. For the purpose of aerodynamics experiments, a number of different testing models may be needed to benmanufactured. Airfoils are such parts that are complex and time consuming fromamanufacturing point of view. Atnpresent, a newmanufacturing technique has facilitatedmanufactureswith a complex geometry, and it is nowpossiblento replace traditional methods by this technology. In this research an airfoil model, which belongs to a missile, hasnbeen manufactured using a three-dimensional printing technology, and has been compared with a model which hasnbeen manufactured using traditional methods. The comparison is made from such aspects as the surface quality,ndimensional accuracy and aerodynamics coefficients. Results reveal difference between the fabrication airfoil andnthe metal model due to the fact that the fabrication airfoil is different with respect to the surface quality andndimensional accuracy. Therefore, a significant difference in some of the aerodynamics coefficients can be observed. Itncan be concluded from this research that, the manufactured models using a three-dimensional printing method cannbe used for primary tests, being less expensive and requiring significantly less time to build.