Niskayuna, New York – The new more complex plane engines designs leads to significant progress in performance and energy efficiency, but they also require new improved maintenance techniques.
While Ge Aerospace is preparing for the service entry of GE9X next year and is testing new technologies thanks to its climb program, the engine manufacturer also tackles how advanced technologies can accelerate the maintenance and training of technicians.
During a press event last week at the GE Aerospace Research Center (RCMP), the company shared examples of the way it uses technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, digital modeling and augmented and virtual reality to improve secondary market for service engines.
According to GE, visual inspections explain the largest share of work carried out in its global network of more than 18 MRO facilities. The company’s engineering division, which performs more than 4,000 store visits each year, has teamed up with the RCMP to understand how to use technology such as AI to capture coherent high resolution inspection images, assemble and digitally capture information to help generate maintenance decisions and performance recommendations.
For example, GE has developed an engine inspection system assisted by AI which uses a robot to place a drilling in a standard position in the engine along a rotation tool that turns the blades in front of it to collect a set of standard images. The system combines this with image analysis, automatic learning and 13 individual AI applications to select the correct image, check damage such as cracks or missing coating, and compare it to GE requirements to find out if a part can continue the service or must be deleted for maintenance.
GE says that inspection results and digital records can be supplied upstream to its engineering division, which uses information to consider potential design upgrades and provide recommendations to operators on how to operate the assets. These results can also be applied to new generation products from GE, such as GE90 or Future Rise conceptions.
The Inspection section of the Ge90 engine workshop manual lasts 19 pages, and an individual formed inspector is needed between 8.5 and 12 hours. To inspect a single piece, the company indicates. However, robots can implement between 25 and 40 different tools, such as cameras or mirrors – to recreate human visual acuity from a room and capture 100% of the inspection process in less than 8 hours.
Increase and collaboration
Automation also helps to eliminate inherent human and environmental gaps. Human performance in visual inspections can vary depending on a wide variety of factors, such as different lighting conditions or the fatigue of the inspector.
Ge said that he has conducted major studies related to human performance against the machine, as for the inspection of the penetrating fluorescent. The results have shown that a camera system associated with automatic learning had an accuracy of more than 85% compared to an accuracy of around 70% of a human based on subjective visual results. GE says that technology also has an advantage because the standardized images collection offers the same image quality from the same representative location on a game each time.
Kissing the capture and automated image analysis does not mean that humans are out of the loop, underlines GE. On the contrary, they help reduce the time of data accreation and to isolate the problems that require the examination of an expert. They can also be shared to bring together more maintenance experts.
GE has created a connected inspection tool that allows inspectors to work with a remote expert to examine images and make informed decisions according to what the two parties see simultaneously. The technology was created in collaboration with the US Navy to improve the preparation of planes, and now GE wants to deploy it for all inspections of its MRO network.
Advanced repair techniques
In his service shop in Singapore, GE has developed geometric adaptive machining technology to improve the accuracy of high pressure compressor repairs CFM56. GE says that these parts have a specific three -dimensional geometric shape that they must maintain to obtain optimal aerodynamic efficiency, but the blades can deform or shorten during operation.
The repair, which consists in welding a new material on the tip of the blade and assuming it to mix with the rest of the part, must take into account these changes in form. The manual finish of the tip repair process requires a qualified operator, most of which are generally approximately 18 months to obtain repair skills, according to GE. The shortages of post-country labor led to examining the automation options of the repair process.
The technology works by capturing the geometry of the blades during the inspection. These data are introduced into the GE adaptive machine, where the software uses an advanced morphing 3D technique to create a personalized repair program for each individual blade in order to compensate for any distortion or variation which occurred during operation. GE industrialized technology at the end of last year in Singapore and now seeks to develop it to high pressure compressor pads.
Another engine with complex parts that will require advanced repair and inspection techniques is the GE9X. Designed with what the engine manufacturer says being its most important and swept blades, the GE9X also includes ceramic matrix composites that will require new inspection technologies.
For example, GE used computed tomography to visualize the ge9x fiber lay-up and coatings compared to each other in a 3D space with very high resolution. The company affirms that part 145 did not calculate tomography as an inspection method validated in one of the OEMs of the new generation engine, therefore to support the entry of the service, it works to understand how to clean and inspect the components for the return of services. This can mean qualifying a new inspection technology or find another equivalent already certified for the secondary market.
Network innovations
RCMP is at the heart of another repair development effort that involves GE experts in its recently open service technology (STAC) technology as well as in its Singapore engine revision installation. The company modifies its patented process of activated diffusion healing (ADH) for repairs of scratches and patches – mainly filling cracks – in super alloys based on nickel.
Repairs are essential to keep the critical pieces of turbine at low and high pressure in service. The existing process is effective, but limiting the scope of the repairs it can manage, explains GE. This leads to the rebate of many parts. Chemicals in the process can also be dangerous for workers.
RCMP and the Singapore store, which performs most of Ge’s Braze and Patch repairs, develops a hydrogen furnace to perform repairs. A furnace is used to clean the parts and join them with the filling material, which binds to the basic metal because the two are heated. The first unit was ordered at the STAC and is in testing.
The furnace will be associated with a new type of ADH repair with improved material properties, explains GE. The combination will see a new repair process that can manage larger defects, which will reduce parts of parts. It will also be safer for workers, says GE. GE is convinced that the new repair will be ready for daily use in 2026.
Meanwhile, GE has invested more than a billion dollars in the training, tools and capacity to support the entry of service of the GE9X in 2026. For example, its Customer Training Education Center in Cincinnati strives to add augmented or virtual reality to complete the class training.
Mohamed Ali, main vice-president of Ge Aerospace and head of technology and operations, said that the company recently reorganized many of its technician training programs to identify and fill gaps related to the use of new technologies such as AI.
“Sometimes it is a limiting factor to bring people and have them fully productive,” he told Aviation Week Network. “We want them to get (for) first of all this training, because we think it is an investment in the future that will take place more, even if you may have to wait a little and spend time and a little money to break the box.”
GE has invested around $ 2.7 billion in research and development for the rise, including the hiring of around 900 engineers last year. Ali says Rise is the biggest demonstration program in the history of Ge Aerospace. The program targets an improvement of 20% or more of fuel burns thanks to propulsive efficiency, including an open fan architecture, a compact nucleus and the integration of alternative fuels and hybrid electrical systems.