Pratt & Whitney has opened its first manufacturing facility in Singapore to produce fan blades and other key components for its PW1000G geared-turbofan (GTF) engine family.
Operated by its subsidiary, P&W NGPF Manufacturing Company Singapore, the 16,000m² (180,000ft²) facility is located at the Seletar Aerospace Park and is the firm's first manufacturing site outside of the USA.
It will produce two types of fan blades and turbine disks, for engines that produce up to 24,000lb-thrust (106kN) and up to 30,000lb-thrust respectively.
It will feature three production lines: fan blade machining, fan blade assembly and turbine disk manufacture. All will be operational by end-2016. The GTF family will power a number of new or re-engined aircraft programmes, including the Bombardier CSeries, Embraer E-Jet E2 and Airbus A320neo.
P&W says production of the fan blades will start “in the thousands”, with ramp-up to match the growth of the GTF programme which has accumulated around 7,000 orders and commitments, including options, for engines for more than 70 customers in over 30 countries.
“Over the past few years, we have invested more than $1 billion globally to create and modernise our manufacturing infrastructure. These investments feature advanced manufacturing equipment, tools and special processes which play an integral role as we increase production volumes,” says Danny Di Perna, senior vice-president of operations.
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Source: Cirium Dashboard
