TI­TA­NIUM ALU­MINIDE TUR­BINE BLADES

The lat­est gen­er­a­tion of mod­ern air­craft en­gines rely on blades of gamma-ti­ta­nium alu­minide ma­te­ri­als to save weight in the low-pres­sure tur­bine. These new ma­te­r­ial classes have a ther­mal sta­bil­ity com­pa­ra­ble to that of nickel-based al­loys, but only half the den­sity.

De­pend­ing on the re­quired prop­er­ties pro­file of the com­po­nents, they are man­u­fac­tured by ei­ther pre­ci­sion cast­ing and/or forg­ing, each with a sub­se­quent pro­cess­ing to the fin­ished size.

As a spe­cial­ist for shap­ing and pro­cess­ing tech­nol­ogy we also offer suit­able pro­duc­tion meth­ods for this new group of prod­ucts: ti­ta­nium alu­minide is very brit­tle and can only be shaped at a very high tem­per­a­ture and at an ex­tremely low form­ing rate. We have de­vel­oped a spe­cific isother­mal forg­ing process for this pur­pose. Spe­cial milling, grind­ing and test­ing meth­ods are also used to man­u­fac­ture ready-to-as­sem­ble blades which can be used equally for the cast­ing and forg­ing al­ter­na­tives. Pro­duc­tion know-how that has been gath­ered over al­most two decades is re­flected in cus­tomised process chains and de­liv­er­ies for al­most all world­wide ap­pli­ca­tions.