Ram Kumar Upadhyay

General Electric Company: Selected Applications of Ceramics and Composite Materials

The General Electric Company (GE) is a global technology company involved in a broad range of businesses relying heavily on advanced materials and manufacturing technologies. This chapter focuses on three advanced technologies: (i) ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), a revolutionary materials technology for aircraft engines and industrial gas turbines, (ii) polymer matrix composite (PMC) fan blades for aircraft engines, primarily for weight reduction, and (iii) NaMx batteries that rely very heavily on ceramics for their efficient operation.

A Simulation App based on reduced order modeling for manufacturing optimization of composite outlet guide vanes

Composites manufacturing processes usually involve multiscale models in both space and time, highly non-linear and anisotropic behaviors, strongly coupled multiphysics and complex geometries. In this framework, the use of simulation for real-time decision making directly in the manufacturing facility is still precluded nowadays, in spite of the impressive progresses reached in numerical analysis and computer science during the last decade. In this paper, a process-specific simulation tool based on reduced order modeling is introduced, the Simulation App. This concept is presented through a practical case involving a multi-physics and coupled problem describing the manufacturing process of a composite outlet guide vane. We show that several manufacturing settings can be simulated in few seconds with the Simulation App, thus enabling fast process optimization. Finally, the advantages over general-purpose simulation software, in the context of process simulation, are discussed.

3.6 GE-90 and Derivative Fan Blade Manufacturing Design

The General Electric Company (GE) is a global technology company involved in a broad range of businesses relying heavily on advanced materials and manufacturing technologies. This chapter focuses on polymer matrix composite (PMC) fan blades for aircraft engines, primarily for weight reduction. The idea for using light-weight carbon fiber and epoxy composites started in 1967 with Rolls-Royce but was unsuccessful due to high structural requirements for the aircraft engine. With Hexcel’s development of a new material HexPly 8551–7, an amine-cured toughened epoxy resin system, GE successfully introduced a composite fan blade in the GE-90 engine in 1995. Currently GE is in the process of developing a fourth generation Fan Blade for future engines. Here we try to provide a historic perspective of the challenges in process design and the path to a robust manufacturing process.