The $200 million centre is comprised of two adjacent factories on 100 acres. One factory will produce SiC ceramic fibre, the raw material used to make the unidirectional CMC tape being produced in the neighbouring factory. The CMC tape will be used to fabricate CMC components for jet engines and land-based gas turbines. The plants are critical in enabling GE Aviation to produce CMC components in large volume.
The fibre plant is modelled after the SiC fibre factory of NGS Advanced Fibres in Japan, a joint company of Nippon Carbon, GE, and Safran of France. The expanding NGS operation is the only plant in the world today producing CMC fibre on a large scale. GE is licensing from NGC its fibre-producing technology.
“The equipment coming into our Huntsville factories is unique,” said Jon Lyford, plant manager for GE Aviation’s Huntsville operations. GE Aviation has been hiring engineers outside the traditional areas of aerospace engineering.
“We are hiring experts in the area of process-based manufacturing found in the oil and gas, chemical, and the consumer-packaged goods industries. Managing the production of CMC materials requires a special skillset. We have several key leadership positions in place, and we begin hiring hourly workers toward the end of the year.”
GE Aviation expects to deliver its first CMC materials from Huntsville by mid-2018. Currently, the Huntsville team is at 40 employees and growing. The company anticipates about 150 employees in the plants by the end of 2018. About 300 employees are expected to run the operation at peak production.
