MTU Aero Engines develops new process for manufacturing nickel IBRs

With the PurePower Geared Turbofan™ engine (GTF), MTU Aero Engines is collaborating with Pratt & Whitney on assembling the aircraft engine of the future. The Pratt & Whitney GTF engine family reduces fuel burn and CO2 emissions by 16% and cuts noise footprint levels by 75 percent. MTU not only contributes innovative turbine and compressor technology to the GTF, it also brings some fresh ideas to the table on the production technology front: The company has refined a production method – dubbed precise electro-chemical machining (PECM) – for manufacturing high-pressure compressor (HPC) integrally bladed rotors (IBRs) made of nickel. Production is already underway on MTU’s shop floors in Munich on four custom PECM machines designed, set up and commissioned by MTU’s PECM experts. Ulrich Peters, Senior Vice President Production at MTU in Munich: “On the PECM machines, we produce integrally bladed nickel rotors for stages five and six of the high-pressure compressor that goes into the PW1100G-JM engine, which powers the A320neo.” These components have a diameter of roughly 450 millimeters and feature extremely complex airfoil geometries. The HPC for this GTF engine is the first commercial all-IBR compressor. IBR is a high-tech rotor design in which the disk and blades are produced as a single piece. This configuration reduces overall length and weight. IBRs are used in low-pressure compressors and high-pressure compressors for military and commercial applications. MTU manufactures such components for all PW1000G-family geared turbofan engine types, for the PW6000 engine powering the A318, and for the EJ200 (Eurofighter) and TP400-D6 (A400M) military propulsion systems. The German engine manufacturer has been one of the leading manufacturers of IBRs for years now.