General Electric to manufacture first 3D printed turboprop engine

General Electric

As we are already used to seeing, thanks to many millions of euros of investment both in the purchase of companies and in research and development, General Electric has become one of the world's most advanced 3D printing related companies. Something that must now be profitable and for this there is nothing better than to start reaching agreements with companies and governments to get its technology to market.

Thanks to this, today we have to talk about the agreement that General Electric has reached with the government of the Czech Republic, a country where a factory designed to be the headquarters where the engine is designed, developed and manufactured will be built. world's first turboprop engine capable of using different types of parts manufactured using metal 3D printing technologies.

General Electric to build the world's first turboprop engine to use parts created by 3D printing

Among the advantages that this new plant will offer for the Czech Republic, it should be noted, for example, that for its construction General Electric will have to carry out a investment of 400 million dollars just in the development of the engine, which should start operating in 2022. On the other hand, it is expected that this new factory working about 500 people.

With the development of this engine, predictably 845 different parts are expected to be consolidated, which will become only 11 components. Despite this, the engine will continue to be made up of hundreds of parts, although it is expected that, by reducing its complexity in terms of design, production can be accelerated at the same time that certain parameters such as fuel consumption will be reduced by 20 % while the engine power will be increased by 10%.

As he commented Milan slapak, manager of the turboprop engine development program within General Electric:

The physics is simple. The more metal it has in the air, the more money it will have to spend on material and fuel to keep it flying. Additionally, an engine with fewer components reduces the number of parts that need to be designed, certified, inspected, manufactured or ordered.


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