In the beginning of January, UK aerospace producer GKN Aerospace introduced it was investing over $60 million to spice up its additive manufacturing (AM) capability in Trollhättan, Sweden. Now, GKN is saying that the corporate has been chosen by US protection large Northrop Grumman to deploy its AM capabilities for strong rocket motor (SRM) manufacturing.
In December 2023, Northrop introduced that it had efficiently examined a newly developed SRM in its Strong Motor Annual Rocket Expertise Demonstrator (SMART Demo). On the time, the protection contractor famous that “a number of modern applied sciences” contributed to the challenge; nonetheless, the corporate didn’t reveal who the producers concerned have been.
The newest announcement confirms that not less than one of many firms taking part within the profitable SMART Demo was GKN Aerospace, and that GKN’s new laser steel deposition – wire (LMD-w) AM course of is likely one of the core enabling applied sciences for Northrop’s ramped-up SRM actions. In response to GKN, the brand new motor was developed in lower than a yr due to the LMD-w approach — the idea for a system referred to as the Cell 3 — housed on the firm’s World Expertise Heart in Spherical Rock, Texas.
In a press launch concerning the challenge, President of Protection Enterprise for GKN Aerospace, Shawn Black, stated, “We’re delighted to collaborate with Northrop Grumman on SMART Demo. Applications like this underscore the numerous advantages [AM] can carry, reminiscent of lowering manufacturing prices and lead occasions for mission-critical merchandise that assist our Armed Forces and the business aviation business. We’re dedicated to innovation and to quickly advance this expertise to assist our prospects and to offer better resilience throughout the aerospace and protection industrial base.”
SRMs are one of many elements that the Division of Protection (DoD) seems to be prioritizing most extremely, within the company’s push to reshore US manufacturing. Round per week earlier than Northrop Grumman’s announcement of the profitable SMART Demo, the DoD’s Undersecretary of Analysis and Growth, Heidi Shyu, introduced {that a} program she heads, the Fast Protection Experimentation Reserve (RDER), had just lately chosen three tasks to maneuver from R&D to manufacturing.
Whereas Shyu didn’t identify the tasks chosen, C4ISRNET reporter Courtney Albon identified that the primary spherical of capabilities that had begun testing for the RDER in March 2023 have been associated to long-range missile fires. Additionally not lengthy earlier than Shyu’s announcement and the SMART Demo, in November 2023, Colorado-based house startup Ursa Main Applied sciences introduced the corporate’s Lynx course of for SRM manufacturing.
GKN Aerospace is an particularly vital firm to regulate, given its R&D foothold within the US, UK, and Sweden, which are actually all NATO international locations. The DoD’s just lately launched Nationwide Protection Industrial Technique locations a robust emphasis on the more and more essential function of alliances within the US’s evolving plans for constructing its future nationwide safety infrastructure. Its mixture of geographic attain, positioning between primes and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and uniquely forward-looking technological prowess means GKN is strictly the form of firm that DoD intends to mobilize into motion to realize its reshoring objectives.
Photographs courtesy of GKN Aerospace
Subscribe to Our Electronic mail E-newsletter
Keep up-to-date on all the most recent information from the 3D printing business and obtain data and gives from third get together distributors.
