High Bypass Jet Engine Fan

A high bypass fan inspired by Rolls-Royce's Trent series turbofans. The fan blades print separately from the disk and are designed to slide in, just like a real fan. The blades can stand up on their own, and the whole fan can also balance on the blade tips as shown in the first picture. This was a totally unintentional bonus feature and would've been difficult to design for. The white spiral stripe is printed flat and glued onto the black spinner cone. If the stripe is too rigid, I recommend printing it with fewer layers (so it's thinner), or softening it with a heat gun or hot water, or printing it with flexible filament.

The clearances and gaps between the parts are as optimized as I could get them, so that parts aren't too tight or too loose. Of course, results will vary depending on your printer and print settings. I uploaded 2 extra versions of the fan blades with more clearance.

Be careful about where the slicer assigns the layers start seam, especially for the fan blades - I recommend placing the seam at the fan blades' trailing edge. Enjoy!

For source files, I uploaded this to GrabCad as well: https://grabcad.com/library/3d-printable-high-bypass-fan-1

Print Settings

Printer Brand:

MakerGear

Printer:

Rafts:

Doesn't Matter

Supports:

Resolution:

.15mm

Infill:

Notes:

Printed using Hatchbox PLA. I didn't need rafts on anything, but I did have brims on the fan blades and annulus fillers. Fan blades don't require supports.

How I Designed This

Designed using pictures. Blueprints and drawings from engine manufacturers are never publicly available for obvious reasons.

Category: Engineering