Redesign of a Gas Turbine Nozzle for Additive Manufacturing

Abstract One of the most innovative technologies of the last thirty years is undoubtedly Additive Manufacturing (AM). This new manufacturing technique has allowed engineers to rethink and create things that wouldn’t be feasible with standard production methods, thanks to its working principle. Large energy companies often use AM to enhance the performance of engine components and as an alternative technology in the spare parts supply chain. For Gas Turbine (GT) Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) one of the most critical responsibilities, beyond developing new machines, is introducing innovation to legacy engines, some of which dated back to the 1960s. These models are still in operation and are still in demand worldwide due to their reliability. AM represents the perfect solution for this purpose, since it enables the complete redesign of a GT component to improve performance without altering the engine’s basic layout, provided the original item’s interfaces remain unchanged. Additionally, as already mentioned additive technology is also used by large energy companies as an alternative to Investment Casting (IC) in the spare parts supply chain. Maintaining an efficient supply chain based on IC can be very challenging and at the same time very expensive, as the casting tools age and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce and qualify new ones. On the other hand, AM allows multiple components for different machines to be manufactured simultaneously with the same printing machine and sometimes the costs can be equal to or even lower than those made by IC. This paper shows the redesign of a PGT5A nozzle made by additive as an alternative to the one made by IC focusing on all the design improvements developed to increase its performance.