Turbofan Jet Engine Model

So all of you who are into 3D printing are probably VERY familiar with the websiteThingiverse. It's a great library and one of the most commonly used websites to acquire 3D files or ".STL" files. I stumbled across this Turbofan engine that has actual ball-bearings pressed into the plastic parts allowing you to have a "somewhat" accurate representation of a split-shaft turbofan. This means that the large frontal fan (The part you can see from the airport windows) is attached with a solid shaft to the low pressure turbines. The second shaft or more accurately named "spool" connects the compressor vanes and the high pressure turbine together allowing each of the two shafts to spin independently. Overall this project took me about 80 hours of total printing time, maybe 3 hours of assembly time. Total cost I can only estimate as approximately 45 dollars which includes hardware, bearings, and printed plastic filament. It's an awesome learning tool and a great help in explaining how the internals of a jet engine work. I mostly use this to help educate boy scouts when they're trying to earn their "Aviation" merrit badge. Hope yall enjoy and Thanks for looking/reading.



 



JetMan