Story ID: 443
GKN Aerospace Scales Additive Production
By: Sarah Rose
Caption: Fan case mount rings ring true
Word Count: 399
GKN Aerospace continues to expand additive fabrication for fan case mount rings (FCMR), aiming to reduce material waste and lead times while supporting demand for GTF engines.
“This is a turning point for aerospace manufacturing,” said GKN Aerospace president for engines Joakim Andersson. “With the FCMR program at industrial scale, we are proving not just the technical capabilities of additive fabrication, but its real-world impact on sustainability, lead time, and cost as well as bringing predictability to our supply chain,” said GKN Aerospace president for engines Joakim Andersson.
“Our recent achievements underline GKN Aerospace’s leadership in developing and certifying advanced fabrication technologies for next-generation engines—and this is just the start for this transformative technology.”
Production is underway at the company’s Trollhättan facility in Sweden, where output is expected to increase from around 30 units per month to a full rate of 40 units per month by year-end.
Earlier this year, GKN Aerospace delivered its 200th additively fabricated “hot size ring”—the core structure of the FCMR—to its Newington facility in the U.S. for final machining. The company plans to meet production volumes aligned with growing demand for the Pratt & Whitney GTF engine used on the Airbus A220 and Embraer 195-E2.
The FCMR is now in serial production, with additional additive activities underway for GE Aerospace. GKN Aerospace reports that current manufacturing methods result in approximately 40% less material waste per part compared to conventional approaches. Longer-term goals include achieving more than 70% material savings and reducing lead times from nine months to as little as four weeks.
In the past year, the company has reached several additive certification and manufacturing milestones. These include FAA approval for its first critical structural component made with additive fabrication, and the delivery of a large-scale titanium engine case for the CFM RISE open-fan technology demonstrator. The component was produced using fully automated direct energy deposition and met quality standards comparable to traditional casting.
The current expansion is supported by a $50 million investment made in 2024 to increase GKN Aerospace’s additive fabrication capacity. This investment is aimed at advancing the application of additive technologies across both civil and military engine programs. Starting next year, the company plans to deploy a modular production concept that could enable additive fabrication to be scaled at additional sites globally.