Honeywell Revolutionizes Jet Engine Innovation with 3D Printing

Additive manufacturing is helping Honeywell trim many months off the development timeline for a next-generation family of turbofan engines that will help define the future of flight. The company is thought to be one of the first jet engine manufacturers to use ceramic 3D printed molds to make turbine blades.

“Turbine blades are made through an investment casting process that only a few foundries in the world can handle,” said Honeywell Chief Manufacturing Engineer Brian Baughman. “It involves machining extremely complex metal dies and tooling to create ceramic molds, which are then cast with a molten superalloy to form the blades.”

Instead, Honeywell is now using groundbreaking vat-based high-resolution 3D printing technology to process ceramic slurry and print the molds directly. Using a state-of-the-art printer developed by 3D industrial printing pioneer Prodways Group, Honeywell has dramatically reduced the time and cost of producing the first-stage high pressure turbine blades needed to develop the new engine family.

“With the conventional investment casting process, it can take 1-2 years to produce the turbine blades needed for the development process,” said Mike Baldwin, Principal R&D Scientist. “Additive manufacturing lets us take the design, print the mold, cast it, test it and get real numbers to validate our models – and the whole process takes just 7-8 weeks. If we need to tweak the design, we can change it electronically and get another blade in about six weeks.”

Even minor changes to the blade design cost up to $1 million or more before the days of 3D printing, he added.

“Additive manufacturing enables rapid prototyping and gives us greater flexibility to accelerate development, manage costs and create the best possible product for our customers. Reducing development cycle time is our primary objective, but we also anticipate saving several million dollars in development costs compared to using the traditional blade casting process.”

Honeywell installed Prodways’ latest MOVINGLight printer, the ProMaker LF10, at its additive manufacturing center in Phoenix in 2023. “Our 3D printers are a perfect match for this use case,” said Michaël Ohana, Prodways Group CEO. “We can process ceramics slurries to build a large number of parts in a single day and deliver consistent manufacturing results at every print.”

Additive manufacturing is ideal for companies like Honeywell that need to produce precision components in relatively low volumes, Baughman said. “Low volumes are often a struggle since the upfront tooling cost for a turbine blade is very high and fabrication requires a long lead time. Additive manufacturing makes a lot of sense in cases like this.”

Honeywell is a leading provider of turbine propulsion engines for business aircraft, military trainers and helicopters. The company is actively developing a new family of turbofan engines that will be lighter, quieter and more powerful, while being able to run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel.

[Case Study] Honeywell Jump Starts Jet Engine Innovation with 3D Printing

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