Flying high in Warsaw: GE’s design center turns 10

From an artist’s concept at the Farnborough Air Show of what passenger planes of the future might look like, to vintage and experimental planes at the Oshkosh Air Show, aviation design has been turning heads in recent weeks. But just as critical as the sleek lines on airframes or the gleaming engine blades that can be seen from the tarmac, are the designs inside the engine doing an array of complex work. GE’s Engineering Design Center (EDC) in Warsaw, Poland, is one the key places where design hurdles that the casual traveler can’t see are overcome. With the center celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, we asked Magdalena Nizik, the center’s managing director, to give us a peek under the hood at EDC.

“Our designers are responsible for the engine’s inner sections, its turbomachinery,” Magdalena says. “It takes many years to develop a new part: the calculations and drawings, testing, production and making sure the parts are being produced according to the drawings. At EDC, we are supporting the aviation product through its life cycle, from the conceptual phase to when it ceases production.”

Happy birthday! GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt (far right) and Ferdinando “Nani” Beccalli-Falco, President & CEO of GE International (next to Jeff) were on hand to toast the EDC’s 10th anniversary at Warsaw’s Palace of Culture and Science. Polish Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak was also in attendance.

The EDC has been on the forefront of much of GE’s commercial aircraft work, designing rotating parts, compressors, and high-pressure turbines. It grew out of a highly successful alliance between GE Aircraft Engines and the Warsaw Institute of Aviation — and has grown from 20 engineers in 2000 to more than 900 in 2010. About 80 percent of the highly trained specialists have doctoral degrees, primarily in mechanical engineering. The goal is to reach 1,000 engineers, by the end of the year.

EDC is also a support and maintenance hub where the engineering expertise is put to use helping airlines repair or overhaul engines. That’s where the center’s Materials Lab — which is its forensic hub — comes into play, allowing engineers to analyze why an engine part failed or was damaged in the field. The video below provides an overview of the center.

Based on its aviation wins, in 2007 the EDC began working with GE Energy and GE Oil and Gas Engineering, developing and supporting aero-derivative gas turbines — which are made from the jet engine designs used in planes and are used to power everything from small factories to hospitals and cruise ships.

Its gas and oil operation works on supporting “legacy equipment” — which is equipment already in production — for clients such as ExxonMobil and Chevron. They’re also building a new repair technology lab to test oil and gas industry products — and in the fall, the center’s laboratory will begin testing deep-water products for endurance under high pressure. With three deep-water pools, it will be the only GE center testing subsea equipment outside of the United States.

Under the hood: In just ten years, the Engineering Design Center in Warsaw Poland has emerged as a cutting edge global engineering site for the company’s aviation, energy and oil and gas businesses. The center’s original mission focused exclusively on aircraft equipment — and the center played a major role in the development of the subsystem assembly for the new GEnx, seen above, including work on the engine’s combustion module and the fan and booster module stator parts.

* Read more Aviation stories on GE Reports
* Read more stories about the GEnx engine