GKN Aerospace has announced the commissioning of a second additive manufacturing cell (cell 2) at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
Located at the DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL, Cell 2 is the world’s largest pilot production cell of its kind and is the next stage in GKN Aerospace’s additive manufacturing research and development targeting large scale structural aircraft components.
Mike McCann, CEO of GKN Aerospace’s Aerostructures North America business, said: “We are proud to introduce the next step in our additive manufacturing research as we continue to push the boundaries of this transformative technology. We believe this to be the largest laser metal deposition with wire (LMD-w) pilot production cell in the world. With this, we will target large scale aerostructure components with a focus on dramatic improvements in buy-to-fly and cost reductions over plate and forgings.”
The GKN Aerospace Cell 2 features include a 20KW laser, 8-axis of motion and a large area inert environment.