What materials are suitable for a mini/model gas turbine engine, specifically the fan, compressor, combustion chamber and turbine?
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$\begingroup$ Could you share the result of your current search? Related: What material is used to make the hot sections of jet engines? and What is the material composition of aircraft compressor blades? $\endgroup$– minsCommented Oct 29, 2017 at 9:17
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$\begingroup$ it really depends on your requirement. if you don't care about anything you can make everything out of steel and it will work, and may work very well for certain applications. choice of material depends on mostly cost, weight, strength, and temperature. Hot sections like turbine mostly take temperature and strength and don't care cost and weight, uses nickel-based alloy . Not-very-hot compressors takes temperature weight and strength and don't care cost either, so titanium is popular. Fan is not hot at all can get expensive and heavy because it's large so aluminum and titanium are both common. $\endgroup$– user3528438Commented Oct 29, 2017 at 15:45
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2 Answers
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Materials are one thing. You also need tools and machinery to build one: the turbine and compressor in a mini jet engine rotate at ~100,000 rpm so they're subject to significant stress. They have to be balanced perfectly.
If you want to build one yourself, look into using a turbocharger from a car engine as the core. That gives a decent base for the high-temperature parts of the engine. Others have built DIY jet engines from turbochargers.
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GE took on this very task and was able to successfully 3D print a working a working get engine scaled for a model sized aircraft. Although they only claim to use "high strength alloys" and are presumably not going to let the world know what its actually made of. There are lots of easily available small jets for RC planes you may want to look into. There is a nice article here about an engine that utilizes a steel combustion chamber and ceramic blades. You could make one successfully out a variety of materials depending on what you are trying to do.
