Three years ago, Avio Aero, which designs, manufactures, and maintains systems and components for both civil and military aviation, opened the most advanced additive manufacturing factory in Europe on the edge of town, and since then, they have received a steady flow of visitors: not tourists, but engineers, executives, and additive manufacturing professionals. Not long after the company opened the factory, they were acquired by GE Aviation, which is using the technology on-site to change how aircraft engines are manufactured. The plant in Cameri is special, because it uses twenty Arcam-developed AM machines, which fuse together layers of titanium aluminide (TiAI) using an electron gun to accelerate an electron beam. TiaI is 50% lighter than nickel-based alloys, and is being used in the Cameri plant to 3D print blades for the GE9X jet engine's low-pressure turbine. The engineers are able to additively manufacture blades that are four times thicker than ones created with a laser-powered 3D printer, which is good, considering the GE9X (which we've written about before) is the largest jet engine ever built. Read more at 3DPrint.com: https://3dprint.com/164730/ge-aviati...craft-engines/