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GKN Wages War On Waste With Additive Manufacturing

At ainonline.com - Paris Air Show - GKN Wages War On Waste With Additive Manufacturing - June 19, 2017

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GKN Aerospace and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee have signed a five-year cooperative research and development agreement focused on additive manufacturing (AM). Using the Department’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF), the $178 million deal aims to develop new AM processes, supporting progress towards their use in manufacturing of major aircraft structural components.

“AM could cut material waste by as much as 90 percent and manufacturing times by around 50 percent,” Mike Grunza, chief executive of GKN’s Aerostructures North America business told a recent press briefing. “[It] will unlock new manufacturing horizons, allowing us to create complex components with no performance compromise.”

Initially, GKN and ORNL will focus on developing laser metal deposition with wire (LMD-w), an AM technique using a laser to layer melted-wire beads on to a substrate to build metal structures. They aim to create a prototype machine to manufacture complex medium- and large-scale titanium parts.

The partners then will support work already under way to make electron-beam melting (EBM) ready for full-scale, high-volume aerospace production. EBM can be used to produce small and medium-size components by melting metal powder with an electron beam to build parts layer-by-layer.

AM can be “one of the most profound technology disruptors of our day,” according to ORNL energy and environmental-sciences associate laboratory director Moe Khaleel. “This partnership will leverage our core capabilities in high-performance materials research, leading to improved efficiency of materials and energy usage for aerospace applications.”

As GKN Aerospace increases investment in such research, the question for engineering and technology senior vice-president Russ Dunn is “when, and at what pace,” aerospace will move further into AM applications. The company says it has AM parts flying on seven major aircraft platforms.
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All told, GKN Aerospace (Chalet A355) has some 55 manufacturing locations in 14 countries on three continents, positioned “where our customers need a technology partner,” according to Cummings. North America has 28 sites (including four in Mexico and one in Canada), while Europe features 21 (Netherlands eight, UK seven, Romania and Sweden two each, and single sites in Germany and Turkey). Asia and West Asia host six GKN manufacturing points (two in India, and one each in China, Singapore, and Thailand).

Cummings said company strategy has been to grow “at or above the market” rate—a plan that has seen sales grow at an equivalent annual compound rate of 18 percent/year during 2012-16, including 36.8 percent last year. He acknowledged the part played by a mix of acquisitions and organic growth, which GKN plans to continue.