Most manufacturers would never dream of switching from an investment cast part to one made by additive manufacturing, especially if they already had paid for the casting mold. Yet that is exactly what GE engineers from GE Aviation are doing with four bleed air parts from a land/marine turbine.

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They made the decision based on cost and time to market. A collaboration between GE Aviation and GE Additive is proving that metal additive manufacturing can go toe-to-toe with conventional castings on price. In fact, the engineering team expects its four 3D printed parts will slice up to 35 percent of their cost. That is enough to justify retiring those old casting molds forever. Equally important, the conversion process took only 10 months to go from identifying target parts to 3D printing final prototypes. Ordinarily, producing aerospace and land/marine turbine parts using a casting process takes 12 to 18 months or more. “This is a game-changer,” GE Aviation Additive Manufacturing Leader Eric Gatlin said. “This is the first time we did a part-for-part replacement, and it was cheaper doing it with […]

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