Pratt and Whitney has introduced it’s utilizing additive manufacturing to speed up the restore of essential GTF engine elements.
The US aerospace firm says the method, which was developed at its North American Expertise Accelerator in Florida in collaboration with the Connecticut Heart for Superior Expertise and the RTX Analysis Heart, is anticipated to avoid wasting 60% on course of time and get better $100 million price of components via 3D printing-enabled repairs inside its MRO course of over the subsequent 5 years.
“A extra agile, additive restore course of permits us to higher serve our clients by enhancing turnaround time, whereas lowering tooling prices, complexity and arrange,” stated Kevin Kirkpatrick, vice chairman of Aftermarket Operations at Pratt & Whitney. “On the similar time, it reduces our dependency on present materials provide constraints. Additive expertise has the potential to assist a variety of essential GTF half repairs and we’re actively working to discover extra alternatives for implementation.”
The method is a steel Direct Power Deposition (DED) expertise and is alleged to remove a number of steps in its present restore strategies with minimal machine changeovers and lowered warmth remedy cycles. Pratt and Whitney says it’s at the moment working to industrialise the method and scale all through its international GTF MRO community, with potential future functions within the restoration of elements worn via regular engine operation.
Using additive manufacturing for restore isn’t a brand new idea however has change into a candy spot for DED and chilly spray-based AM applied sciences. Additive OEMs like Optomec have discovered ample success within the restore market with the supply of its 10 millionth turbine blade refurbishment again in 2020 and contracts with the US Air Drive and Air Drive Sustainment Heart based mostly on comparable functions. Within the final 12 months, different machine producers similar to Nikon launched a DED steel 3D printer geared in the direction of turbine blade restore functions, and earlier this 12 months ADDiTEC launched its AMDROiD laser DED system tailor-made to steel restore functions within the defence sector.
