GE Avio has opened its new plant in Cameri, in the heart of the Piedmont Aerospace District. The new GE Avio plant is focused on the production of aeronautics components through additive manufacturing, also known as 3D Printing. The Cameri plant, opened at the end of 2013, is able to accommodate up to 40 machines for producing aviation engine components by additive manufacturing (or “3D printing), the state-of-the-art technique able to produce solids of any shape starting from a digital model, by combining special metal alloys starting from powders. The company says the technology will contribute to the change in how aeroplanes are made in the future.
The overall floor area of the main building is 1.610 sqm while the floor area of the linked technical building is 290 sqm. This building has been designed with the purpose to totally redeem the activities of management and maintenance from the principal building to the linked one. It contains different places where are located: energy meters; compressors; pumps; thermal power station; co-generator and pump substations.
Our firm has offered engineering services that range from project feasibility studies and preliminary design, to final design and construction management, including architectural and structures design, project conception, and cost control. We mediated all the demands of this particular industrial activity, by a sober, coherent , modern and introverted architectural impact.
The building has been designed for a productive process that uses for example EBM technology (technology that uses an electron beam in the melting process of the material into the form foreseen). After the part has been designed digitally, the powder is layered in the form that is an exact replica of the computer design. The EBM process developed by Avio Aero with Arcam from Sweden enables the layered powder to become the finished component.
The plant in Cameri has its own atomizer, which is optimized for the production of powdered titanium: the atomizer melts the ingot of solid matter and turns it into a liquid state. Subsequently, this machine passes a liquid thread from a nozzle through a pressurized argon spray (argon being a noble gas present in the atmosphere), which atomizes the material.
Argon is used because it prevents the titanium powder from being contaminated with oxygen. Of all the production processes at GE Avio, it is the only one where it’s actually possible to start from the raw material, namely powder.
An evaporative tower for the refrigerators and for the generator group has been built on the west side of the area. It will process the heat of the atomizer. The refrigerators will produce the water destined to the technological cooling. The generator group will guarantee the power supply during the periods of unavailability of the public net.
“Strong service and design for a new manufacturing system”