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What do you do to waste time at work? Browse the web? Answer personal emails? At GE, engineers do something a little crazier with their down time, like making an entirely 3D-printed miniature jet engine that actually works.
This itty bitty engine is built from parts made entirely through additive manufacturing, a 3D-printing technology where instead of layering plastic you layer metal powder and then melt it all together with lasers. The team, which works out of GE Aviation's Additive Development Center (go figure), built this little engine over the course of a few years. Now, the finished product stands about eight inches tall, a foot long, and roars like the real thing.
When they put it to work in a test cell usually reserved for full-sized engines, the GE team was able to get the mini one up to a serious, fire-spitting 33,000 RPM. There are tons of industrial applications for this kind of stuff; NASA's already messing with 3D-printed rocket fuel injectors. But clearly the best use will be to build a tiny RC jet. Get on that guys.
Source: GE Reports
