777WT From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 874 posts, RR: 1 Posted (8 years 4 months 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 2703 times:
Hello all, just signed up today!
A while ago, I remembered seeing a link or a image of a GE90-115B fan blade from airliners.net forums, there was a woman in a white lab suit and she was applying resin or laminate to the blade.
And there was a comment that it said it's made by hand since no machines could make a fan blade yet.
I've went crazy searching every forums using the keyword GE90 and couldn't find it.
I had saved it and lost it in the process of copying the images to a CD to free up hard drive space.
Widebodyphotog From United States of America, joined Jun 1999, 917 posts, RR: 68 Reply 1, posted (8 years 4 months 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 2653 times:
While I can't speak to the details of the picture you ask about, I can say that the Resin Tranfer Molding (RTM) process used to manufacture blades for GE90 is done almost entirely by machines in an automated process. The carbon fiber plies are tacked, cut, stacked, and the resin is injected all by machine. "Touch labor" on such a part would result in intolerable inconsistencies from one part to another and the fan blades could never be as strong or durable as they are.
-widebodyphotog
If you know what's really going on then you'll know what to do
777WT From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 874 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (8 years 4 months 5 days 5 hours ago) and read 2615 times:
I agree Widbodyphotog. Just like the way 7E7 Fuselage is being built.
I am so sure the comment of the picture had a statement in it relating to the way the blades were done by hand.
I'd like to use the image for my collection and it's a really hard to find image as I've been searching for it still.
Videns From Argentina, joined Mar 2004, 133 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (8 years 4 months 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 2589 times:
Not long ago, there was a thread where somebody was talking about visiting a Rolls Royce (If I remember correctly) factory, and how surprised he/she was at how much manual labor was involved... I wouldn't be surprised to find out some part of the process of building a fan blade is done by hand... After all, everything in a jet engine is incredibly complex to manufacture, and a human hand might be needed sometime or another during the process...
I also read that the processes involved in the manufacture of jet engines is sometimes (depending on the parts) quite secret for industrial espionage reasons...
Are there any jet engine manufacturer's employees around here with any info they're willing/allowed to share?
Travel? Why would i travel if I can watch it on TV?
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From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 874 posts, 
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