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JOME Engineering builds 3D printed UAE’s first marine propeller in Dubai image

With no drawings and no time to wait for a foundry, JOME Engineering scanned an existing propeller and printed a working replacement in Dubai, close to the vessel it was built for. Made in SS316L on Caracol’s Vipra AM, the part cut lead time by about 60% and cost by about 40%.metal-3D-printed-propeller-3D-printed-marine-propeller-CuAl8Ni6-propeller-CuAl8Ni6-WAAM-propeller-manufacturing-propeller-repair

When the only blueprint is the part itself

When JOME’ client came looking for a marine propeller rebuilt to match an existing part, the request came with an added complication. It had to be delivered fast, and it arrived with no CAD files, no tooling to work from. Everything that defined the propeller, from blade curvature to pitch to the way each blade blends into the hub, lived only in the physical part itself. The geometry had to be recovered before it could ever be reproduced.

Since casting would have meant cutting a new die and then waiting weeks, and there wasn’t time for either. JOME Engineering chose the additive route instead. The team 3D-scanned the original to create a digital master, then printed the propeller in metal on Vipra AM, Caracol’s robotic WAAM platform for large, complex parts. The work was carried out in JOME’s facility in Dubai, close to the vessel the propeller was going back on.Caracol-Vipra-AM-metal-additive-manufacturing-robotic-additive-manufacturing-AM-WAAM

From scan to finished propeller: the build and what it delivered

The team built the propeller section by section to keep tighter control over the outcome. The central boss went first, it was machined to precision- once it had passed a dye penetrant inspection confirming there were no cracks or porosity, the three blades were printed on top of it. Machining then turned out to be the demanding stage, running to roughly 100 hours, largely because a blade is a twisted freeform surface with barely any usable datum, so aligning the part stayed difficult even with setting pointers in place.

To manage that risk, the team re-scanned the part at each stage, checking both that the geometry still tracked the master and that enough stock remained to keep cutting. The build closed out with a hand grind, a pitch verification and a final round of balancing. The re-scans also gave JOME a documented record of the part at every stage.

Technical specs

  • Technology: Vipra AM – XP model
  • Material: SS316L
  • Final Weight: 26 kg
  • Diameter: 685 mm
  • Print time: 20 hrs
  • Machining time: 100 hrs

Caracol-post-processing-metal-post-processing-CNC

The additive route really paid off on the numbers that matter to JOME Engineering:

  • Lead time dropped by around 60%, since there was no die to cut and no foundry queue to wait through, so the vessel got back into service sooner.
  • Cost came down by roughly 40%, because tooling is the single biggest fixed expense on a one-off cast propeller, and with a single part there’s no production run to spread it across.

Additionally, JOME now owns the propeller’s geometry as a digital file. If the part is damaged again, the next one goes straight to printing without a new scan.

Sustainability is part of the picture too. WAAM melts only the wire it deposits and needs no steel die, which lowers the CO2 footprint of a one-off part like this propeller.Caracol-AM-WAAM-buy-to-fly-ratio-lead-time-reduction

Rethinking how marine spares get made

What the propeller shows is where metal 3D printing makes the difference: capturing a part that only exists physically and rebuilding it faster and more cheaply than casting could manage. Reverse engineering and WAAM make a natural pairing. The scan recovers what the drawings never held, and Vipra AM reproduces it with no die in sight, keeping the buy-to-fly ratio tight and the lead time short.

Deposition took only a small slice of the total effort (20 of roughly 120 hours), while machining and finishing carried most of the load, which is the usual shape of any precision metal part. For JOME Engineering, the result was a balanced, ready-to-run propeller delivered on time and on budget in Dubai. For Caracol, it adds a SS316L part back in service at sea to Vipra AM’s track record in marine applications.Caracol-Wire-arc-additive-manufacturing-robotic-WAAM-propeller-metal-deposition

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