🔒Pratt moves key engine program to digital model-based design

Pratt & Whitney has announced it is accelerating the development of a key engine design for the U.S. Air Force with the use of digital data packages. The digital design process will be applied to the XA103 engine for the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) program. The change means moving away from paper or PDF files as a way of collaborating with suppliers and internal teams and instead using advanced digital design models that incorporate key data in all of the files. Pratt says the aim is to shorten development times, reduce costs and increase design efficiency. Moving to a digital model-based environment also improves the company’s ability to predict manufacturing costs and accelerates testing and validation for each iteration of the design, according to Pratt. "We are paving the way with digital on NGAP, so much so that the rate at which we are delivering XA103 technical data packages has doubled," said Jill Albertelli, president of Pratt & Whitney's Military Engines business. "We are applying these learnings across our engine portfolio." Pratt & Whitney has invested more than $30 million this year to develop its model-based environment. That investment comes on top of money from its parent company RTX and from government contracts that have also supported the upgrade. Pratt is one of the companies that has worked closely with the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology to drive adoption of model-based design through the supply chain. CCAT is implementing a $7.1-million grant from the Department of Defense that has allowed it to build out a training lab for this technology. The XA103 engine is expected to test in the late 2020s.