City Of Auburn Alabama Made Award To Investigate Benefits Of Additive Manufacturing

Hartzell Engine Technologies, LLC (HET) has received a grant from the city of Auburn, Alabama's Additive Manufacturing Accelerator (AMA) program.

"This is a very exciting step into the future of product design and manufacturing," stated Keith Bagley (pictured), president of Hartzell Engine Technologies (HET). "We are extremely grateful and proud to have been selected to take part in the Additive Manufacturing Accelerator grant program."

"We have been actively exploring all of the various benefits available through additive manufacturing techniques for the past 18-months," he continued, "This grant gives us the opportunity to put our ideas into practice while working with the recognized leaders at Auburn University's National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence (NCAME), it a significant push forward."

As Rick Quave, HET's VP, Engineering explained, the company is concentrating its additive manufacturing efforts on Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS), which uses high-energy lasers to fuse metal powders to form 3D printed metal parts.

"Up until now, our designs have been confined by the limitations of the two-part casting and machining production process. After casting, each part has to undergo multiple stages of machine finishing. It adds a lot of time, expense, and creates a lot of waste," he says. "Additive manufacturing will allow us to totally shift the design paradigm. Instead of a product's design being driven by current manufacturing limitations, we will be able to design components that deliver improved performance and reliability while also being easier to manufacture."

"These capabilities will change the fundamental design, manufacturing, and sourcing processes going forward and free us up to design products that optimize performance. We believe that DMLS will unlock those capabilities for us," Quave added. "We're encouraged that our upcoming work with Auburn University's Additive Manufacturing team will prove the value that 3D printing will bring to the production of FAA certified components for piston and turbine aircraft engines."

"Hartzell Engine Technologies has always taken great pride in consistently delivering the best performing, most reliable parts and components to our customers throughout general and business aviation," Bagley stated. "We are extremely excited to again be on the industry forefront of bringing beneficial new technologies like additive manufacturing to the general aviation fleet."

FMI: www.auburn.edu, www.Hartzell.aero