GE Aviation workers handcraft latest technology

ASHEVILLE – North Carolina won the bragging rights to “First in Flight” after the Wright Brothers flew a simple plane made mostly of wood, canvas and wire at Kitty Hawk in 1903.

More than a century later in Western North Carolina, workers at Asheville’s GE Aviation plant are the first in the world, handcrafting jet engine parts with new materials called Ceramic Matrix Composite that will revolutionize flight in years ahead.

Asheville won the ground-breaking technology in an intense competition among seven states and cities vying for GE Aviation’s new facility, thanks mostly to the highly skilled 290 workers working at GE Aviation’s existing plant in the Sweeten Creek Industrial Park.

“This workforce is the most technically skilled hourly employees in our area,” boasted Michael Meguiar, the Asheville plant manager. “Their skill level and machining experience are the biggest reason this new production line is in Asheville. We needed their skills.”

Keith Duncan, a 10-year veteran, was shocked at the heft of the new material when he first handled it, a third of the weight of the nickel-super-alloys he was used to. “That just blew me away. I didn’t think it would stand up.”

Duncan is a second-generation worker at GE. His father, John Duncan, worked for the plant for 45 years, with 29 job titles as the aviation parts and production changed over the years, but his dad never dealt with anything like CMC.

“This is new, it’s different process,” Duncan said.

Ceramic Matrix Composites

The aluminum alloy and cast iron that went into the Wright Brothers’ simple engine would dissolve instantly inside the mighty combustion of a modern jet engine built now out of exotic metals or super-alloys.

Engineers have been working for decades to find lighter, stronger, more heat resistant materials that would work inside the hot sections of an engine.

GE is taking a technological leap with a material called Ceramic Matrix Composites, working with carbon fibers, silicon and secretive processes to create parts for its new LEAP engines that will go on new Airbus and Boeing jetliners starting in 2016.

Making more efficient planes should be good for the planet.

Industry experts estimate that a single jet plane will be able to save $1 million in fuel costs. Less fuel burned also means fewer greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere — a primary culprit in the global climate change that threatens more wildfires, drought, flooding and superstorms.

Instead of relying on forges to deliver exotic metals that local workers can machine and mill into precision parts, the Asheville plant will in effect be creating its own raw material.

The noisy production floor of an advanced manufacturing plant will give way to mobile clean room environments that control for humidity and temperature. Inside workers cut and lay out various films that will be layered and formed into the parts. Later, the parts are put through autoclaves and then ground with special equipment. Finally, the parts will be treated with special coatings that GE engineers have invented and perfected.

Handcrafting precision parts

Key stages of the process depend on the skill of human hands rather than the automated robot arms found in most advanced manufacturing plants.

“There are things that the human hand can do that the most sophisticated automated machines still can’t,” explained Ted Limbo, the CMC Technology Leader.

Part of the revolution will be in the new plant going paperless, keeping track of each piece through each stage of the process through computer records. “It’s womb to tomb,” Meguiar said.

Officials will be able to trace a specific part of a jet back to the day it was made on the floor at the GE Aviation plant.

The local plant is ahead of schedule with its pilot line, which has been in operation since December. And more workers are getting up to speed with the space-age components.

Meanwhile, construction is proceeding next door on the new 170,000-square feet building with the best environmentally green practices. Full-scale production is scheduled to start in January. GE has plans to hire 52 new workers as well as keep training current staff.

The existing plant and workers will continue to make super-alloy parts for several years as the aviation industry slowly shifts into the new CMC components.

“To be a part of something that is so cutting-edge not only in the technology but in our industry, our first wave of people are very excited about it,” Meguiar said.

GE Aviation workers are already accustomed to that hands-on process and pride in craftsmanship.

Rhonda Harris, a 13-year veteran, will spend up to five hours making sure that all the grooves and surfaces of a freshly machined ring are free of burrs. She will sand and grind her way through about two components a day. But she’s also looking forward to trying her hand at the ceramic material. “I would love it.”

That kind of pride and care counts in aviation when passengers depend on thousands of precision parts in sophisticated planes to safely carry them airborne. Whenever she seeing a jet pass overhead, Harris says, “it makes you feel good, knowing that you’re making something that is so important.”

Source:  http://www.citizen-times.com