GE Aviation to build ceramic matrix composite factories

• 9 years ago (2015-11-03)
• David Flin

North America 1021

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GE Aviation has announced that it will be building facilities in Huntsville, Alabama in the USA to produce silicon carbide (SiC) used to manufacture ceramic matrix composite components (CMCs) for gas turbines. GE Aviation will invest over $200 million to construct two factories on 100 acres in Huntsville.

One plant will produce SiC fibre, and it will be the first such operation in the USA, and the second in the world. The adjacent factory will use the SiC ceramic fibre to produce the unidirectional CMC tape necessary to fabricate CMC components. Construction of the two plants will begin in mid-2016, will full completion by the first half of 2018. Production is scheduled to start in 2018.

The Ceramic Fibre Plant is supported by funding of $21.9 million from the US Air Force Research Lab Title III Office. The CMC Tape Operation will be an adjacent plant, financed solely by GE, and will apply proprietary coatings to the ceramic fibre and form them into a matrix to produce CMC tape. GE’s Power and Water business is testing CMCs in its newest and most efficient air-cooled gas turbines. At GE Power and Water’s new Advanced Manufacturing Works facility in Greenville, South Carolina, prototype CMC components are being built to replace super alloys in large gas turbines.

GE said that it expects demand for CMCs to grow tenfold over the next decade. Dr Sanjay Correa, Vice President of the CMC programme at GE Aviation, said: “Establishing the new GE factories in Alabama is a very significant step in developing the supply chain we need in order to produce CMC components in large volume.”