GE Aviation rolls out its 1,000th GEnx engine

GE Aviation assembled the 1,000th GEnx engine, just a mere five years after the first production engine was built at GE’s Durham, North Carolina. The first GEnx engine entered service on a Boeing 747-8 aircraft in 2011, and the engine program has accumulated five million flight hours and 900,000 cycles. Production volume of the GEnx engine remains high. Last year, GE delivered 280 GEnx engines and 270 engines are set to be delivered in 2015. GE is also looking at possible technology enhancements to ensure the GEnx engine remains a leader in its class. This year, testing took place on a GEnx demonstrator engine that contained lightweight, heat-resistant ceramic matrix composite (CMC) components in the high-pressure turbine (HPT) and combustor along with next-generation HPT stage 1 blades with advance cooling technology and lightweight low-pressure turbine titanium aluminide (TiAl) blades produced using a 3D additive manufacturing process. The demonstrator engine is part of the technology maturation program for the GE9x engine. Results re-affirm GE’s CMC technology roadmap and could lead to future improvements on the GEnx engine.