![]() Until 3D printing came along, the only way to shape it involved molding, a somewhat dirty process that requires expensive tools. It weighs 50 percent less than the metal alloys typically used in aviation. Jet engine designers love this strong, heat-resistant wonder material, also known as TiAl. The beam “grows” the blades, which are 40 centimeters long, by welding together thin layers of titanium aluminide powder, one after another. A single machine can simultaneously print six turbine blades directly from a computer file by using a powerful 3-kilowatt electron beam. The 3D printing factory, which looks like a blue and gray jewel box of steel and glass from the outside, holds 20 black, wardrobe-sized 3D printers, made by Arcam. “We ran a lot of experiments to get the job right.” “These are big blades,” says Giorgio Abrate, general manager for engineering at Avio Aero. The 3D-printed blades spin inside the engine at 2,500 times per minute and face searing heat and titanic forces. ![]() GE Aviation acquired Avio Aero in 2013 and developed the GE9X engine for Boeing’s next-generation 777X jets. ![]() And just across from the plant’s runway stands another futuristic manufacturing gem: Avio Aero’s 3D-printing factory making sleek turbine blades for the GE9X, the world’s largest jet engine, which took its maiden flight last week. But take a short ride through the rolling fields of the fertile Po Valley that surround it and you’ll discover a startling contrast.Ĭameri is the home of the only final assembly plant outside the United States for Lockheed Martin’s F-35B Joint Strike Fighter, a stealthy jet that can take off and land vertically. The Northern Italian town of Cameri could be easily mistaken for a quiet farming commune.
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