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US 8,844,133 B2Granted
Stereolithographic rocket motor manufacturing method
AssigneeThe Aerospace Corporation
InventorJerome K. Fuller
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A hybrid rocket motor is manufactured by photopolymerizing the solid fuel grain in a stereolithography method, wherein fuel grains in a plastic matrix are deposited in layers for building a solid fuel rocket body in three dimensions for improved performance and for a compact design,
Claims19
A method of making a rocket motor, comprising:
- selectively disposing a fuel in a thin layer, portions of the thin layer being selectively patterned, wherein selectively disposing comprises at least one of selectively disposing by laying down using laminated manufacturing, selectively disposing by sintering using laser sintering, selectively disposing by extruding using fused deposition modeling, or selectively disposing by printing using spraying;
- and
- repeating the selectively disposing step a plurality of times for disposing a plurality of the thin film layers to form a fuel grain of the rocket motor, the patterned layers defining voids in the fuel grain.
A method of making a solid fuel motor, comprising:
- forming a three-dimensional fuel grain utilizing a rapid prototyping technique comprising:
- selectively disposing a fuel in a thin layer, portions of the thin layer being selectively patterned;
- and
- repeating the selectively disposing step a plurality of times for disposing a plurality of the thin film layers to form a fuel grain of the rocket motor, the patterned layers defining voids in the fuel grain;
- wherein the rapid prototyping technique comprises forming the fuel grain utilizing one of selective laser sintering, fused deposition modeling, three-dimensional printing, or laminated object manufacturing;
- and
- in the fuel grain, at least one of the voids defining at least one channel aligned at least in part axially or radially with respect to a longitudinal axis of the fuel grain.
4 more elements
A method of making a rocket motor comprising the steps of:
- disposing a fuel by extruding a molten material through an extrusion head in a first patterned layer;
- disposing the fuel by extruding the molten material through the extrusion head in a second patterned layer against the first patterned layer;
- repeating the disposing steps a plurality of times to generate a plurality of patterned layers;
- and
- removing portions of one or more of the plurality of layers to form a plurality of patterned layers of a fuel grain of the rocket motor, the plurality of patterned layers of the fuel grain defining voids in the fuel grain.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.