Abstract
The industry and the academy are continuously developing new technologies and approaches regarding the gas turbine manufacturing. Logically, sectors of turbomachinery and aerospace engineering are deeply focused on applying newer and even unconventional manufacturing process, aiming on cost reduction, reduced lead times and efficiency. In addition, it is conspicuous that metal additive manufacturing (AM) technologies can provide interesting possibilities for companies seeking to innovate and perfect existing components, with respect to reach better buy-to-fly ratios. In this paper, the authors developed a proposal for additively manufacturing a fuel swirler and evaluated in detail its process of fabrication in order to compare the results with the characteristic of a conventionally manufactured swirler. Furthermore, a dedicated review of the state-of-the-art related to the AM of fuel swirlers were realized to evaluate the relevance of this topic to conclude if the use of AM to fabricate this component can favor the aerospace industry.
