Eplus3D-printed CuCrZr chamber powers UCL Rocket's 7 kN LOX/IPA engine hot-fire test

Eplus3D provided the metal additive manufacturing hardware behind a 7 kN regenerative LOX/IPA liquid rocket engine hot-fire tested by University College London's UCL Rocket team. The combustion chamber, printed in CuCrZr with 57 internal cooling channels, was built on Eplus3D's EP-M300 laser powder bed fusion system and depowdered on the company's EP-MC400 unit. During testing, the team found that machining swarf from post-print subtractive work had obstructed 33% of the active coolant channel area, an issue not anticipated in the original test plan. The chamber survived after the team cut throttle by half and added a 2% PDMS fuel additive, without warping.

The result extends Eplus3D's aerospace propulsion track record with UCL Rocket, which previously used an Eplus3D EP-M400S to print a CuCrZr chamber for an N2O engine tested under the UK Space Agency-backed Race 2 Space competition. For Eplus3D, a Hangzhou-based LPBF OEM competing against Western machine builders on aerospace-grade copper-alloy printing, a second validated cryogenic engine program gives it a concrete reference case for cooling-channel geometry and CuCrZr process control, categories where machine vendors are judged on repeatable part performance rather than demo hardware. The swarf contamination finding is also a reminder that post-processing, not the print itself, is often the gating step for internal-channel rocket hardware.