GE Aviation has invested more than US$200 million in two factories to mass-produce silicon carbide (SiC) materials used to manufacture ceramic matrix composite components (CMCs) for jet engines and land-based gas turbines for electric power.
The plants are expected to be completed by the first half of 2018 and production begins in 2018.
‘GE Aviation is creating a fully integrated supply chain for producing CMC components in large volume, which is unique to the United States,’ claimed Sanjay Correa, who leads the industrialization of advanced technologies at GE Aviation.
The new plants will also support GE and its international partners in selling and supporting jet engines and gas turbines worldwide. GE and its partner companies reportedly sell 70% of its commercial jet engines to non-US companies.
One plant of the Huntsville plants will produce SiC ceramic fiber, the first such operation in the United States. The second factory will use this SiC ceramic fiber to produce unidirectional CMC tape necessary to fabricate CMC components.
This story is reprinted from material from GE Aviation, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.