GE Additive
GE Additive bank of machines
GE Additive bank of machines
GE Additive has announced Eaton’s Aerospace Group is to begin using two Concept Laser additive manufacturing (AM) machines and AddWorks consultancy services to direct industrialisation activities.
The agreement between the two firms was announced on the first day of the Farnborough International Airshow, where GE Additive has also revealed its materials division, AP&C, has acquired gas atomizer equipment currently installed at GE Aviation’s Avio Aero plant in Italy.
Eaton is a supplier of products and technologies for hydraulic systems, fuel systems and engine solutions. Looking to further develop its long-term AM strategy, Eaton is to install one Concept Laser platform at its AM Center of Excellence in Southfield, Michigan, and the other at its R&D lab at the company’s Global Innovation Center in Pune, India by next month. Meanwhile, AddWorks will lend support in the areas of industrialisation, part certification processes, materials characterisations, and product readiness.
“Additive capabilities provide new business opportunities and a strong competitive advantage,” commented Nanda Kumar, President, Eaton’s Aerospace Group. “In five to ten years, we see a significant portion of our portfolio being manufactured through additive processes because of the investments we are making today. Additive manufacturing is an exciting technology that offers many advantages. We look forward to leveraging GE Additive’s expertise and experience to accelerate our initiatives in this space.”
“We’re honoured to have been selected by Eaton to join them at this pivotal stage of their additive journey,” added Jason Oliver, President and CEO, GE Additive. “Our own direct experiences and learnings in mass scale production within the aerospace industry mean that we have an implicit understanding of what they’re trying to achieve.”
GE Additive
AP&C Avio Aero
GE Additive is set for a particularly busy Farnborough Air Show, with as many as eight announcements expected over the coming days. Completing the first round of developments is AP&C’s purchase of Avio Aero’s gas atomizer equipment, which is being transferred to the company’s facility in Montreal, Canada. GE Additive and the AP&C division see this technology as perfectly complementary to the latter’s Advanced Plasma Atomization (APA) process, which sees wire of raw material being fed into an atomisation unit, melted using plasma and atomised into spherical powder before being put through a sieve and classified by particle size distribution. The final powder lot is then tested and certified to meet customer requirements. The gas atomisation technology in question uses melt as starting material and is well-suited to powder recycling.
This reorganisation within the wider GE company has been done to better position additive manufacturing technologies, allowing Avio Aero to focus on the manufacture of engine components (with Arcam’s EBM process and powders developed by AP&C), and affording AP&C better resources to manufacture materials and powders. The equipment is expected to be fully operational by March 2019, at which point AP&C will become a preferred supplier of TiAI for GE Aviation.
“Without ongoing materials science research and innovation, additive will struggle to advance,” said Alain Dupont, President & CEO, AP&C. “While this relocation makes sense commercially, it is also a key element of our future materials development strategy. Having this complementary technology in the AP&C portfolio opens up wider possibilities for us as a business and also for our customers who continually want to push boundaries.”
“The equipment moving to Canada means more volume and capabilities at our Cameri plant. And of course more 3D printing machines,” said Giacomo Vessia, Cameri plant leader, Avio Aero. "In addition to focusing on additive processes we will also have the time and more space to train and equip our existing and new team members with future manufacturing skills."
