Avio Aero’s, facilities in Europe has agreed to support CFM engines for next generation medium-range aircraft. Avio Aero, a GE Aviation business designs, manufactures and maintains components and systems for civil and military aviation.
The LEAP engine is a product of CFM International, a 50/50 joint company between GE and Safran Aircraft Engines. Everything is almost ready for entering into service of all versions of the LEAP engine including the new engine based on modern technologies and materials (3-D printed fuel nozzles and the carbon fiber fan blade and case, the twin-annular, pre-swirl combustor, and the titanium aluminide (TiAl) low-pressure turbine blades).
The LEAP-1A is already in service powering the Airbus A320neo family.
The LEAP-1C (the twin of the -1A, designed for the Chinese airliner COMAC C919) obtained EASA and FAA certification last December and will be entering into service soon.
The LEAP-1B, which powers the new Boeing 737 Max, also passed the certification tests last year and is ready for entry into service.
Avio Aero will support the LEAP program at all its facilities in Italy and at its center of excellence in Bielsko Biala (Poland) where it manufactures the nozzles for the low-pressure turbine and the stator stage 3, 4 and 5 turbine blades for all three versions of the engine (LEAP-1A, -1B and -1C).
Avio Aero also designed these components and owns the technological processes used to produce them, notably the EDM (electrode discharge machine) technology which will reduce machine throughput time, increase quality and improves cost-effectiveness largely.
For the first time ever, Bielsko Biala will manufacture an entire combustor module with the modern twin-walled (twin-annular) combustor solely for the LEAP engine. The internal and external components of the combustor are extraordinary as the two parts are assembled rather than cast to form a single cylindrical component.
Giovanni Ferrara, leader of the combustors & structures center of excellence, said, “We have delivered the first combustor for the LEAP-1A, the version that we’ll focus on all year, and will start work on the -1B by the end of 2017. We are working tirelessly to meet this challenge and are savouring the opportunity: investing in new machines and dedicated production cells, using advanced models of lean manufacturing, dividing exceptional volumes of work between all the teams, and qualifying each new technological process developed by our engineers.”
