Printing for the future: Cobra Aero rethinks designing for additive manufacturing with nTopology
HILLSDALE, Mich., - When a fast-growing company designs and manufactures some 2,000 small engines per year, it likes to stay abreast of the latest digital-engineering tools. Yet Sean Hilbert, president of Cobra Aero, is also adamant that the final proof of the integrity of every power and propulsion product he creates for his drone and motorcycle customers is always the test bench, writes Lynn Manning for AUVSI. Continue reading original article
The Intelligent Aerospace take:
January 21, 2020-Cobra Aero president Sean Hilbert tells AUVSI that by speeding up the iterative loops between digital and physical allows his company to stay ahead of the competition, and Cobra Aero does so by embracing additive manufacturing - 3-D printing.
Hilbert noted that its 3-D printed air-cooled UAV engine cylinder out-cooled and out-performed the company's traditional design.
“Testing showed that the new lattice structure was more efficient at cooling than our fin design. In every case, at every different RPM, less cooling air was required to maintain proper engine temperature," Hilbert told AUVSI. "What this means to design going forward is that we can now make a smaller inlet to the cooling duct, which in turn makes a smaller frontal area on the aircraft, so we have less drag on the aircraft for the same amount of cooling — exactly what we were hoping for.”
Related: Air New Zealand expanding use of 3D printing for MRO applications
Related: Airbus produces 3D-printed flight parts for A350 XWB aircraft with Stratasys technology
Jamie Whitney, Associate Editor
Intelligent Aerospace
