MTU Aero Engines: Führender Triebwerkshersteller in Deutschland s1
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Press Release
MTU Aero Engines: Engine manufacturing at its best
Berlin, May 20, 2014 – Compressors and turbines made by MTU are among the finest to be found in the marketplace. Another field in which the com- pany, which has been providing propulsion systems to power aircraft for decades, has become a world leader is manufacturing techniques. “Our technological capabilities are top-notch,” says Richard Maier, Senior Vice President, Production Development and Support at MTU Aero Engines in Munich. In some manufacturing technology areas, MTU is the undisputed Number One in the world.
Among the most important high-tech processes in use at Germany's lead- ing engine manufacturer are lasercaving, a technique used to produce contoured cooling air holes in high-pressure turbine blades and vanes, as well as adaptive milling, friction welding and precise electrochemical ma- chining (PECM) for blisk production. Additive manufacturing processes, such as selective laser melting, which builds up components layer by lay- er, are beginning to play an increasingly important role.
Lasercaving MTU's engine specialists have developed the lasercaving technique and hold a global patent on this method of manufacturing, which combines two separate processes – laser drilling and laser ablation – and is a key tech- nology when it comes to boosting turbine efficiency further. It uses a laser to generate flared cooling air holes in high-pressure turbine blades and vanes. Through such holes, the outflowing air spreads more advanta- geously over the component surface. As a result, less cooling air is re- quired and efficiency is improved. On the GP7000, which powers the Air- bus A380 mega-liner, high-pressure turbine efficiency is increased by one percent, with a resulting reduction in fuel burn and in CO2 emissions in the same order of magnitude of one percent.
Blisk manufacture Blisks (blade integrated disks) are high-tech components manufactured in one piece that eliminate the need to fix separately manufactured blades to the disk. This increases strength and reduces weight. Blisks are used in low-pressure and high-pressure compressors for military and commercial applications. Says production expert Maier: "We're currently also looking into options to use blisks in turbines." MTU is one of the leading manufac- turers of blisks worldwide, producing about 600 of the components a year;
MTU Aero Engines AG Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Dachauer Straße 665 80995 München • Germany Tel +49 (0)89 14 89-26 98 Fax +49 (0)89 14 89-87 57 www.mtu.de this figure will rise to as many as 4,000 in the years to come. To be able to cope with this workload, the company has built a new shop on its premises in Munich, which houses its center of excellence for blisk production.
Large titanium blisk airfoils are fitted to the disk one by one by linear fric- tion welding and then finish-machined by adaptive milling. Medium-sized and small titanium blisk airfoils are milled from the solid. Small and medi- um-sized airfoils made from nickel-base alloys – that is, from materials that are difficult to machine – can alternatively also be produced by PECM. As is generally the case with electrochemical material removal processes, no finishing of the machined surface is required. Explains Maier: “Electro- chemical machining is a standard technique that has long been part of our portfolio of manufacturing capabilities. PECM allows us to work even more precisely and effectively, as only two steps are needed to produce a nickel blisk airfoil.” The PECM method used is an in-house development; this year, MTU’s PECM experts will commission two new machines they have built on their own.
Here is how PECM basically works: Material is removed electrolytically, that is in an electrolyte under the action of electric current, in a controlled manner from a metallic workpiece. In the process, the material to be ma- chined is the positive pole and the three-dimensional metallic forming tool is the negative pole. The electrolyte used is an aqueous sodium nitrate so- lution, which flows between the anode and the cathode. The liquid has three main functions: It carries the electric current between the tool and workpiece, it removes the dissolved materials and the hydrogen formed in the process from the machining area, and it dissipates the heat produced. The advantages it affords over conventional machining: The tools do not actually touch the workpiece, so they do not suffer wear in the process. Moreover, PECM allows an unprecedented level of precision to be achieved, not least thanks to the extremely narrow machining gaps of just a few micrometers.
Tandem blisks and compressor spools – several successive compressor stages arranged in line – are produced by rotary friction welding. MTU's shop in Munich boasts one of the world's largest and most precise rotary friction welding machine. The equipment, which is about 20 meters in length, is a double-spindle configuration that permits a wide range of com- ponents to be welded with an ultra-high degree of accuracy. When friction welding compressor spools, a pressure of 1,000 metric tons is applied. For MTU, friction welding is a key technology needed for the production of rotors for next-generation engines that are made from higher-strength ma- terials and are markedly larger in size than conventional components. The technique lends itself to the manufacture of more compact, highly inte- grated compressor rotors made from titanium and nickel-base materials whose reduced weight helps cut down on fuel consumption. Another pro- cess in MTU's portfolio is inductive high-frequency pressure welding, which is used to fit mid-sized titanium blades to disks.
Additive manufacturing processes Additive manufacturing technology is rapidly spreading from one industry sector to the next. In the field of aero engine construction, Munich-based MTU Aero Engines has achieved a breakthrough: As one of the first compa- nies to use the new technique, MTU produced components for production engines last May. These parts - borescope bosses for the PurePower® PW1100G-JM engine, the Pratt & Whitney engine to power the A320neo – are made by selective laser melting, or SLM. “We are using one of the most advanced technologies to produce parts for one of the most ad- vanced engines in the world, the geared turbofan,” says Maier. With this technique, the first step is to slice up a 3D CAD model of the component to be produced. A laser then builds up the solid equivalent of the model layer by layer from a powdered material. The powder particles are locally melt- ed and fused together. The benefits of the innovative approach are too compelling to ignore: The processes allow complex components that are extremely difficult, if not impossible to manufacture using conventional methods to be produced with only small amounts of material and few tools. The technology opens the door to entirely new designs, appreciably cuts development, production and lead times, and brings down production costs. “Additive manufacturing is particularly suitable for producing parts in materials that are difficult to machine, as, for example, nickel alloys,“ according to Maier. The flexibility of the process makes it particularly suit- able for low-volume production and for one-off components.
About MTU Aero Engines MTU Aero Engines is Germany's leading engine manufacturer and has been a key player in the global engine industry for 80 years. It engages in the development, manufacture, marketing and support of commercial and military aircraft engine modules and industrial gas turbines. The company is a technological leader in low-pressure turbines, high-pres- sure compressors, manufacturing processes and repair techniques. Figuring significantly among MTU's core competencies are the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of commercial engines and the service support it provides for industrial gas turbines. These activities are combined under the roof of MTU Maintenance, which is one of the world’s largest providers of commercial engine MRO services. MTU operates affiliates around the globe; Munich is home to its corporate headquarters. In fiscal 2013, the company had a workforce of some 8,700 employees and posted consolidated sales of some 3.7 billion euros.
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