Techspace Aero, SAFRAN’s Belgian subsidiary, is participating in the General Electric GEnx engine program. This new-generation engine will power both the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, and undoubtedly the Boeing 747 Advanced as well. The partners signed a new contract at the Paris Air Show, raising Techspace Aero’s stake in the program to nearly 5%. We talked to Jérome Morhet, GEnx program manager at Techspace Aero.

What is your company’s exact role in the GEnx?

According to an initial contract signed on March 29, 2005, we are responsible for the design and production of the low-pressure compressor guide vanes, giving us a 2.5% share of the program. In fact, its worth mentioning that we are now SAFRAN’s center of excellence for low-pressure compressors, present on all recent engine programs that GE leads or participates in, from the CFM56 to the GEnx, as well as the CF34-10 and GP7200. During the Paris Air Show, we signed an amendment to the partnership contract, expanding our role to include assembly of the LP compressor module, and design and manufacture of the compressor stators. Discussions are now being finalized for production of the fan disk. All of this additional work will raise our stake to nearly 5% of the engine. We are also involved in the production of various test components, cowls and air inlet ducts.

How are you organizing to handle this program, and what kind of impact will it have on Techspace Aero’s business?

Our development team now numbers 40 people, but it will expand rapidly in the coming months during the assembly and production engineering phase. Production activities will contribute about 100,000 hours of work a year, with production stretching over some 20 years, from 2008 to 2028. After that, production of spare parts for the fan disk should take over. We are now halfway into the development and production engineering phase. The design has been frozen, and rough casting is starting. Techspace Aero will begin manufacture of the first parts in August, and in November we will begin assembly and instrumentation of the parts for the first engine to test (FETT).

What are the major challenges of this program?

The first is the schedule. We started working on the program six months after the other partners. But despite this delay, our unrivaled knowledge of low-pressure compressors meant we were able to convince GE to assign us a major workload. Today, deadlines are very tight: we have to deliver the LP compressor, fully assembled, instrumented and balanced, on January 12, 2006, for final delivery of the first engine to test in March. That only leaves us a year to finish everything. The other main challenge concerns weight: GE set a very ambitious goal, of making it 10% lighter than the GE90, for an equivalent power output.