×

GE.com has been updated to serve our three go-forward companies.

Please visit these standalone sites for more information

GE Aerospace | GE Vernova | GE HealthCare 

header-image
GE Aviation

These Space-Age Ceramics Will Be Your Jet Engine’s Next Cup of Tea

May 15, 2015
Humans have been living with ceramics for 25,000 years. We’ve been using them for cups, pipes, pottery and many other handy everyday objects. But the light, strong, and heat resistant material has one fatal flaw, which has kept it confined mainly to the cupboard. “When you hit it, it fails catastrophically,” says Krishan Luthra, chief scientist for manufacturing and materials technologies at GE Global Research in New York. “I thought it would be the Holy Grail if we could get it inside machines, and get more power and savings out of our engines. It could really make an impact.”
Categories
header-image

The FAA Cleared the First 3D Printed Part to Fly in a Commercial Jet Engine from GE

April 14, 2015
The fist-sized piece of silver metal that houses the compressor inlet temperature sensor inside a jet engine is a part that’s bit obscure even for many aviation aficionados. Starting now, however, it’s becoming a symbol of one of the biggest changes sweeping jet engine design.
The housing for the sensor, known as T25, recently became the first 3D-printed part certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly inside GE commercial jet engines.
header-image

Bringing Back the Bling: New Process Recovers Precious Platinum from “Smut”

March 31, 2015
How rare is platinum? Imagine that making an ounce of it is so difficult that even exploding stars called supernovae, the crucibles whose high energies forge most chemical elements, can’t do it. In fact, if the latest theories are correct, it takes a collision of two massive neutron stars – objects so dense that a teaspoon of their matter weighs 100 million tons - to manufacture the metal.
header-image

One if by Air, Two if by Sea: How the Jet Engine that Supercharged Aviation Found Earthly Calling, Powering the World’s Fastest Ship

March 23, 2015
When the first C-5 transport plane took off in 1968, it became the world’s largest aircraft, capable of lifting 130 tons of cargo. As tall as a six-story building and 80 yards long, the U.S. Air Force called it “a beautiful, useful giant.”
header-image

Huge GE Power Deal Will Light Up Egypt with Electricity

March 13, 2015
Economies run on power, and growing economies, like growing kids, are always hungry for more. Such is the case in Egypt, which is brimming with young workers. The median age of Egypt’s 85 million citizens is just over 25 years, and they need new jobs in factories demanding ever more energy.
But Egypt’s demand for electricity is already outstripping supply, and the government is seeking fast ways to boost it. GE has found one.
header-image

Here Comes the Jet! Lost Film About the Jet Engine’s Top Secret Origins Found in GE Archives

March 09, 2015
In 1942, a group of GE engineers working in secret for ten months built America’s first jet engine. Their mission was to win the war, but they ended up shrinking the world. “They called us the Hush-Hush Boys,” says Joseph Sorota, one of the last living veterans of the project, who just turned 95.
header-image

GE Develops Jet Engines Made From Ceramic Matrix Composite

March 04, 2015

Engineers at jet engine proving grounds in Ohio are using a jet engine GE developed for Boeing’s Dreamliner to test engine parts made from a new ceramic super-material called ceramic matrix composite. The material could help pave the way to more fuel efficient planes.

header-image

The Jet Engine that Opened Up the Globe Holds an Unusual Secret

February 28, 2015
Two years ago, when Boeing decided to build the world’s largest twin-engine jet capable of routinely crossing more than 9,000 miles on a tank of fuel, it needed a powerful engine to go with it. GE engineers solved the problem for the plane maker by proposing an engine so large it could swallow a subway train through its 11-foot-wide air inlet.When completed, the engine, called GE9X, will be the largest jet engine ever built.
header-image

The Nuclear-Powered Jet Engine, Ceramic Turbines and Other Gems from the History of Flight

February 23, 2015
The airplane was still barely a teenager when the United States entered World War I, and the U.S. Army’s fledgling aeronautical division wanted to make its airplanes fly higher without losing power.
header-image

Ceramic Matrix Composites Allow GE Jet Engines to Fly Longer

February 09, 2015
In the century following the Wright Brothers’ first flight in 1903, planes have gone through three materials revolutions: wood and fabric fuselages gave way to aluminum and, eventually, to light and strong carbon composites used to make the bodies of the latest planes like Boeing’s Dreamliner and the Airbus A350. But a new and unusual material is now changing the industry again: ceramic matrix composites.
Subscribe to GE Aviation