Establish Laboratory For R&D Using 3D Modeling Data

Pratt & Whitney has partnered with the University of Connecticut to establish one of the nation's most advanced additive manufacturing laboratories, the Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center.

This state-of-the-art facility will be used to further additive manufacturing research and development, and is the first in the Northeast to work with metals rather than plastics.  Additive manufacturing is the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing methodologies.  Materials are added, versus the traditional subtractive methods such as stamping, forging, computer numerical controlled machining, to precise geometries determined by CAD drawings. 

"The University of Connecticut's outstanding technical capacity complements our fundamental research needs and will help us continue to grow our additive manufacturing capabilities," said Paul Adams, Pratt & Whitney's Chief Operating Officer. "Additive manufacturing is complimentary to traditional methods by enabling new innovation in design, speed and affordability. It is necessary to build the next generation of jet engines. We are currently using additive manufacturing to build complex components with extreme precision for the flight-proven PurePower commercial jet engine."

Pratt & Whitney invested more than $4.5 million in the Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Center and over the next five years will invest more than $3.5 million in the facility. In 2010, Pratt & Whitney established a research Center of Excellence at the University of Connecticut.  The Pratt & Whitney Center of Excellence at UConn focuses on fundamental and applied research initiatives that support the design and development of more efficient gas turbine engines. UConn's primary research is in the field of advanced sensors, diagnostics and controls.

FMI: www.pw.utc.com, www.uconn.edu