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GE-Additive the growth of AM as industry-standard production tool


GE Additive sets out its role in the growth of AM as an industry-standard production tool - 10 April 2018


GE Additive's Greg Morris delivered a keynote presentation at the 2018 AMUG conference.

GE Aviation has incorporated AM into the production of numerous engine components. It all started in 2013 when the company first printed a heat exchanger – the LEAP engine fuel nozzle had been designed for AM at this stage but not yet manufactured. Over the next two years the GE90 T25 Sensor was manufactured and certified, as was the GE9x LPT Blade and the LEAP fuel nozzle. The GE9x includes 1 high pressure heat exchanger; 28 fuel nozzles and combustor mixers; 16 particle separators; 228 stage 5 and stage 6 LPT blades; and a single T25 sensor. Around 700 of these have been pre-sold meaning upward of 160,000 turbine blades need to be manufactured. In 2016, GE Aviation completed the design of a catalyst engine. Here, the combustor test schedule came down from 12 months to 6 months, reduced weight by 5%, will achieve 20% lower fuel burn, and a 10% power increase. The a-CT7 engine, meanwhile, originally comprised of 300 separate components, and was redesigned down to one single part. It boasts a 10 lbm weight reduction, and Morris says this concept is influencing nearly every other design of every other product GE is looking at.

It all sets GE up to have a huge say in AM’s adoption in the aerospace sector. The company is unique in that it is at once a developer of AM technology and a consumer – GE Aviation being GE Additive’s biggest customer means the company is its own test bed for machines and materials, but a world-renowned one at that. With 9 locations around the world, as well as 1200 employees, GE Additive is aiming to disrupt the wider manufacturing market by harnessing AM. It currently has more than 1,000 projects in progress, 50,000 AM parts in the field, and believes the AM market may have grown to around the $76bn mark within the next 10 years. Morris pointed out that functional applications convert people, and he’s “very convinced this industry will become a major force in manufacturing.” GE Additive is set to play a significant role in that becoming a reality.