The Engineering Design Center (EDC) is one of GE Aviation's global engineering sites, established in 2000 based on an engineering alliance agreement between GE Aviation and the Warsaw Institute of Aviation. Today, EDC has evolved to working with three GE Infrastructure businesses -- Aviation, Energy and Oil & Gas. Primarily a turbo machinery design center, EDC was recently given ownership for LPT and Booster Modules.

Major engineering activities at EDC for GE Aviation include Airfoils, Combustion, Rotating Parts, Bearings Seals & Drives, Systems Engineering, PDE, Materials Application Engineering and Failure Analysis, Installation Aero, Thermal Management and many others.

The main GE Energy work areas include design, manufacturing support of industrial energy products like gas & steam turbines , industrial aeroderivative gas turbines, filters and electorfilters and gasification systems.Team is also involved with product service and field support. GE Energy Team in EDC consists of the Gas Turbine Team, Aero Energy Team, Steam Turbine Team, Environmental Services Engineering Team, Gasification Team and Advanced Technology Operations.

The EDC GE Oil&Gas team covers a very broad range of design activities, starting from various types of compressors, through gas and steam turbines, turboexpanders up to control and auxiliary systems. EDC GE Oil&Gas is divided into four major teams: Advance Technology (including Aero Design and Heat Transfer), Projects and Auxiliaries, Machine Design and North America operations. An important part of EDC GE Oil&Gas activity is also service support.

"In 2000, EDC was founded with five employees and today, we have 450," said GE Polska HR manager. "Our biggest challenge for 2007 is recruitment, as we plan to double our size and hire approximately 500 more employees."

EDC engineers are highly educated, with more than 99 percent of the population being MSc and PhD graduates. More than 20 engineers are MRB (Material Review Board) certified and four are Senior Engineers.

The Warsaw Institute of Aviation was founded in 1926 by the President of Poland and is a highly respectable scientific and engineering institution. One of its many technical achievements was the design and certification of an all-composite airplane I-23 in 2003.

The Airfoils Center of Excellence

Airfoils Center of Excellence comprises 5 teams: Airfoils Aero & Aeromechanics, CF6, M&I, CF34/CFM/GE90 and Honda.

Airfoils Aero & Aeromechanics team provides technical support for New Product Introduction, field support, cost reduction and manufacturing support by performing fan, compressor and turbine aero and aeromechanics analyses for several engine lines. This team also develops and verifies new analysis tools for aero and aeromechanics. In addition, its responsibility is to support bench and engine tests by determining optimum gage locations and evaluating test data.

CF6, Marine and Industrial (M&I) and CF34/CFM/GE90 teams own fan, compressor and low pressure turbine airfoils, as well as high pressure turbine shrouds and hangers for its engine lines. These teams work on New Product Introduction by running different types of analyses (thermal, stress and life, vibration), manufacturing support, field support and cost reduction. The teams also support Repair Organization in development and optimization repairs for its airfoils and shroud and hangers on high-pressure turbines.

The Honda team is a special team created to support the GE/Honda HF120 engine. This team is responsible for the design, analysis and manufacturing support of assigned airfoils for the HF120 engine.

All of the above groups utilize modern Computer-Aided Design tools (Unigraphics, Ansys, CATIA, Flotran, Patran and others) to support its analyses.

Advance Mechanical Design (AMD)

AMD Group is one of the most multidisciplinary sub-sections in entire EDC organization supporting early design concepts as well as further engine development programs. It conducts analyses in accordance to applicable GE Infrastructure design practices following NPI discipline including technical and tollgate reviews. AMD group consists of four teams:

• Engine Clearances
• HT&FSD
• Thermal-Aero Management
• MRAS (composite structure design)

Engine Clearances team designs axial, radial and circumferential closures for steady state and transient conditions for most of the GE designed aircraft and M&I. Highly qualified aerospace engineers predict blade tip and seals clearances, post-process rub traces, perform component migration analyses and participates in ACC programs. Team also develops 3D structural models and runs Fourier series to understand possible engine carcass distortion.

Heat Transfer & Fluid System Design team is responsible for thermal design and heat transfer analyses of the most of engines’ components as well as providing secondary air system design and analyzing compressor bleeds. HT&FSD team is also involved in the state of art of rotor thrust and fire safety analyses.

Thermal-Aero Management team provides wide range of complex numerical CFD analyses of internal and external flows. Performance analysis and optimization of inlets, fan ducts, thrust reverses, diffusers, exhaust systems, heat exchangers and under cowl cooling are run for different flight conditions. Simulations are performed using commercial codes such as CFX, Fluent or ICEM CFD.

MRAS team is the only one in entire EDC organization designing external engine/airframe structures in composite technology. This team, relatively new to the business, designs composite nacelle components as well as thrust reverser modules for the local and the long-range type aircrafts. Team is continuously looking for talents in the area of composite design and analyses with command of CATIA 5 and MSC Patran/Nastran.

Combustion Center of Excellence (CCoE)

Engineers working in Combustion Center of Excellence at EDC are responsible for major GE commercial combustors. The team consists of 6 independent teams:

• Small Commercial (CF34)
• Medium Commercial (CFM56)
• Large Commercial (CF6)
• Marine & Industrial (LM2500 SAC, LM6000 SAC, LMS100 SAC)
• Combustor Analysis Team
• Combustor Repair Team

The area of CCoE Team responsibility is as follows:

• Project leadership & management
• New product introduction together with design & analysis (aero, heat transfer, stress & life Analysis)
• Test planning
• Field support (including direct cooperation with customers & failure root cause investigation)
• Manufacturing support
• Cost reduction & productivity projects

What is the most interesting about Combustion CoE is problem complexity the CoE faces. Very often, single project require expertise in many technical disciplines: combustion process (including emission), heat transfer & sophisticated cooling system design, stress analysis & durability prediction. Next step is design validation, production introduction and hardware support in the field. That is why all CCoE teams continuously cooperate and share theirs experience within EDC and with US counterparts in order to provide the best final product.

Engineering Systems Design and Integration

ESD&I at the EDC consists of Systems Group, Structures Center of Excellence, and MPED.

ESD&I Systems Group is participate in engineering programs related to LPT, LPC, and Combustor modules. They work on NPI programs like GEnx or HF120, and also provide support to mature product lines like CF6 and CF34. Our system engineers coordinate design efforts of different CoE’s at EDC, they work on manufacturing issues, repair problems solving, and SRD investigations. They are also involved in cost reduction programs and driving life improvements into LPT/LPC and Combustor design.

Structures Center of Excellence has been recently reactivated at EDC. They support two NPI programs: GEnx and HF120. There is a plan to hire more people and expand the work-scope to some mature product lines like GE90, CF6 and possibly M&I. SCoE engineers at EDC are responsible for internal structural parts of the LPT/LPC, and other modules. They perform various types of engineering design analyses like stress, life, vibration, and support resolving manufacturing issues. Engineering tools they use are mostly Unigraphics, Ansys, Patran and other.

MPED at EDC is made up of two groups: MAE and FA.

Materials Application Engineers are teamed up with Design and Manufacturing Engineers in hardware ownership. This teamed ownership results in a deeper understanding of the part application and close contact with all aspects of part production to ensure that design intent is met. EDC MAE work-scope includes Fan & Compressor blades and vanes, Combustors, HPT shroud & hangers, LPT blades & nozzles for commercial, marine and industrial engines.

Failure Analysis Team conducts metallurgical evaluation of damaged parts of an engine and identifies the root cause of the failure. Close cooperation with Design Engineers and Product Support Engineers is a must to get reliable and quick results.

Product Definition Engineering - Design

Product Definition Engineering (PDE Design) provides UG/design support for all the CoEs at EDC. Currently PDE Design comprises 5 teams, and these are as follows: PDE ACoE, CCoE, StrCoE, RPCoE and BSD.

Work-scope and main PDE DesignTeam activities:

• Contribution to detail design, weight reduction, design changes.
• 2D/3D UG modeling of components/assemblies for FE models & analyses.
• Drawing ownership and Drafting coordination.
• Drawing ownership and Drafting coordination.
• Stack-up analyses for castings and machined parts.
• Drawings issuing.
• Participation in the Interface Control Documents.
• Manufacturing support.

To perform the tasks listed above, PDE uses the most advanced CAD tools like Unigraphics and TeamCenter (Product Management System).

PRMD – Product Reliability & Maintenance Design

PRMD engineers are responsible in the design process for meeting such customer requirements like: reliability, serviceability and optimal cost of maintenance.

That task requires continuous monitoring of product performance in the field. Information about products like: aircraft engine, locomotive is collected from customers located all over the world. Based on that information probabilistic model is created that predicts product performance.

Reliability theory, statistics, and data processing software are specific knowledge required from candidates to PRMD.

Rotating Parts Center of Excellence (RPCoE)

RPCoE main responsibility is design and stress / life analyses of all rotating components in the jest engine including disks, shafts, bearings, seals as well as gearboxes.

Team is divided between different engine lines and currently is working on entire range of GE Aviation products including small commercial turboshaft engines powering helicopters as well as the biggest engines like world’s most powerful GE90-115B engine powering Boeing 777-300ER. Our area of competency includes also industrial aeroderivative gas turbines that are powering cruise ships and serving as generators in industrial environment.

Majority of the parts that RPCoE deals with are safety and reliability critical, which makes engineering environment highly demanding and challenging. This creates unique opportunity to develop engineering knowledge and learn from the people who are one of the best within the world’s aerospace industry. RPCoE engineers are engineering elite, due to the responsibility that is being carried out with the work done.

RPCoE team responsibilities can be divided into 3 areas:

• Rotating Parts, Bearings, Seals and Gearboxes Design
• Manufacturing Support for Europe and US factories
• Failure Investigations

Working for RPCoE enables people to follow the process starting from the part concept through design validation, part production introduction up to supporting the hardware in the field.

Our engineering team not only does redesigns of the existing parts, but also is responsible for designing and production introduction of completely new parts. To complete the scope of that work RPCoE team is also responsible for manufacturing support to the GE Aviation European vendors.

UNISON

In April 2002, after twenty-two years operating as a private entrepreneurial business, Unison became a wholly owned subsidiary within the GE - Aviation business unit of General Electric. GE acquired Unison for its technical leadership in integrated electrical control components and systems, creative growth-oriented culture, and its strong commitment to integrity and delivering quality products and services to its customers.

In January 2004, Elano Corporation, a world leader in the integrated design and fabrication of metal tubing, ducting, bellows, and manifolds for turbine engines and airframes, merged into and became part of Unison. In January 2005, Unison acquired Aircraft Parts Corporation (APC), which designs and manufactures small to medium sized airframe generators, generator control units and starter-generators.

Unison industries are also part of the GE Global initiative wherein the GE IQ - Unison team performs analysis, Engineering and Design activities with great responsibility and participation in the New Product Development process.

GE IQ-Unison works with teams in Jacksonville designing Harnesses & Ignition Systems and with teams in Dayton designing metal tubing, ducting, bellows and brackets. Although only four years old, the GE IQ-Unison team is integrated in the US marketing, manufacturing and engineering teams and works as one team, having developed capabilities for FEA analysis, ownership of Hardware design, routing & interface for several Engine Build Up systems and leadership in the design of several fan/core harnesses in the field of aviation technology.