On January 6, 2025, according to the resource library, Dubai IT engineering company LEAP 71 recently successfully completed the hot test of a 3D printed motor. The engine has a thrust of 5,000 Newtons and is driven by cryogenic liquid oxygen and kerosene. This test is a new step after the successful test of an AI-designed rocket engine in June 2024.
The Aerospike engine was designed by LEAP 71 based on Noyron engineering designs and was completed in just a few weeks. Manufacturing was carried out by Aconity3D, using aerospace copper alloy (CuCrZr) and laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) technology for 3D printing. Solukon was responsible for the powder removal and Fraunhofer carried out the heat treatment. Preparation for the test was guided by Race 2 Space. team from the University of Sheffield.
Its design is quite unique, abandoning the traditional bell-shaped nozzle and replacing it with a conical structure located in the center of the annular combustion chamber. This design allows it to remain effective under different atmospheric pressures and operate stably even in the vacuum environment of space. However, due to the high temperature exhaust gases of up to 3500°C on the surface of the cone, leading to huge cooling problems, few teams have managed to overcome this technology over the past 30 years .
The breakthrough of LEAP 71 lies in its large-scale Noyron computer engineering model that solves this problem. It is an artificial intelligence programmed and trained by aerospace experts that takes a given set of input parameters and creates a design consistent with those parameters by inferring the physical interaction of various factors, including behavior thermal and expected performance. The results are then fed back into the AI ​​model to refine it as it reveals calculated performance parameters, engine geometry, manufacturing process parameters and other details.
