GE Contest Winner: The Most Strength with the Least Weight
GE recently announced the winner of its Jet Engine Bracket Challenge. The challenge involved a bracket to be shifted from CNC machining to additive manufacturing. Machining limits design options, but additive manufacturing offers complexity for free.
GE recently announced the winner of its Jet Engine Bracket Challenge. The challenge involved a bracket to be shifted from CNC machining to additive manufacturing. Machining limits design options, but additive manufacturing offers complexity for free. Therefore, GE’s challenge asked contestants to redesign the bracket to perform its function with the least amount of weight and material. The winning design is seen here. According to GE, M Arie Kurniawan, an engineer from Salatiga in Central Java, Indonesia, came in first out of nearly 700 entries from 56 countries. Mr. Kurniawan’s bracket and the rest of the top ten bracket designs were additively manufactured at GE Aviation’s additive manufacturing plant in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Kurniawan’s design reduced the bracket’s weight by nearly 84 percent.
Related Content
-
New Zeda Additive Manufacturing Factory in Ohio Will Serve Medical, Military and Aerospace Production
Site providing laser powder bed fusion as well as machining and other postprocessing will open in late 2023, and will employ over 100. Chief technology officer Greg Morris sees economic and personnel advantages of serving different markets from a single AM facility.
-
“Mantis” AM System for Spacecraft Uses Induction for Deposition
The metal 3D printing system melts wire without lasers. 30-foot-diameter parts are built on a rotary-feed system that eliminates the need for a large machine frame or gantry.
-
At General Atomics, Do Unmanned Aerial Systems Reveal the Future of Aircraft Manufacturing?
The maker of the Predator and SkyGuardian remote aircraft can implement additive manufacturing more rapidly and widely than the makers of other types of planes. The role of 3D printing in current and future UAS components hints at how far AM can go to save cost and time in aircraft production and design.
