GKN Aerospace has taken a major step forward in the industrialisation of additive fabrication (AF), with the Fan Case Mount Ring (FCMR) programme now progressing toward full rate production by the end of 2025. The company is already delivering at volume from its Trollhättan facility, in Sweden, with output set to ramp up from around 30 units per month today to 40 per month by year end.

Earlier this year, GKN Aerospace marked its 200th delivery of an additively fabricated ‘hot size ring’, the core structure of the FCMR, to its Newington facility, in the USA, for final machining. The company is on track to deliver run rate volumes to support the increasing market demand of the GTF engine for the Airbus 220 and Embraer 195-E2.

With the additively manufactured FCMR now in serial production, and key additive insertion activities for GE Aerospace now also underway, current results demonstrate around 40% material waste reduction per part compared to traditional manufacturing methods. In the future, GKN Aerospace expects to achieve more than 70% material savings, while reducing end-to-end lead times from nine months to as little as four weeks.

In the past 12 months, GKN Aerospace has achieved several key additive certification and technology milestones. These include FAA approval for its first additively fabricated critical structural component and successful delivery of its largest ever all-additive component: a large-scale, titanium engine case for the CFMI RISE technology demonstrator. Produced using fully automated direct energy deposition, the structure met casting-quality standards and demonstrated the full design and build potential of large-scale additive fabrication.

Joakim Andersson, President Engines, GKN Aerospace, said:

“This is a turning point for aerospace manufacturing. With the FCMR programme at industrial scale, we are proving not just the technical capabilities of additive fabrication, but its real-world impact on sustainability, lead time and cost as well as bringing predictability to our supply chain. Our recent achievements underline GKN Aerospace’s leadership in developing and certifying advanced fabrication technologies for next-generation engines – and this is just the start for this transformative technology.”

This ramp-up follows GKN Aerospace’s $50 million investment in 2024 to expand its world-leading sustainable additive fabrication capability, focused on increasing capacity and accelerating industrial application across civil and military engine platforms. This expansion will accelerate from 2026 due to the modular additive fabrication production concept, which enables the rapid deployment of the technology in other sites globally.