United Technologies Corp. today will unveil a $40-million engine compressor facility at its East Hartford research center that will ease UTC subsidiary Pratt & Whitney’s efforts to design engines.
With this facility, UTC research and development workers can test air compression, which is crucial to engine performance, officials said. The facility, comprised of about 450,000 pounds of concrete and tens of thousands of pounds of steel reinforcement bars, enables R&D engineers to test durability and efficiency of the engines they design.
The closed loop design of the apparatus improves test efficiency and provides greater ability to adjust test conditions like temperature and humidity for greater data accuracy, according to UTC.
“This closed-loop compressor facility is the largest system of its kind known today and eliminates the remoteness between experimentation and product development,” UTC said in a statement.
Construction of the testing facility took more than 500 people (in addition to UTC Research Center and Pratt & Whitney full-time staff) from 75 companies, 60 of those based in Connecticut. It’s located across the street from jet-engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, and gives UTCRC employees access to full-scale compressor block testing for R&D.
Installation of the new facility comes as UTC celebrates 90 years of the Research Center’s operation, and a continued push for R&D just a few years before the worldwide conglomerate received tax breaks from the state in order to revitalize its two East Hartford operations.
In 2014 Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration inked a deal with UTC that allowed the conglomerate to use up to $400 million in unused R&D tax credits on a $60-million refurbishment of its East Hartford Research Center, and a new $180-million engineering facility for jet-engine maker Pratt & Whitney.
As a result of that investment, UTC has no plans to move its R&D activities out of East Hartford, even as the Farmington conglomerate prepares to relocate its headquarters to Massachusetts, once its $120-billion merger with defense giant Raytheon is complete later this year, said Andreas Roelofs, vice president of research and director of UTC’s Research Center.
UTC, which spends $4 billion annually on R&D, is putting that investment to good use, Roelofs said. The company was awarded 9,000 patents in the U.S. over the past five years, the company said. In 2018 it received 459 patents in Connecticut.
The Research Center employs about 400 people in highly skilled positions, Roelofs said. About 70% hold a Ph.D. and they all represent a mix of longtime Connecticut residents and people who moved here from around the globe.
UTC’s main R&D focus lies, unsurprisingly, in aerospace, Roelofs said. Research runs the gamut from minor improvements to existing products and technologies, to implementations of new technology.
Among its R&D activities, UTC researchers are currently trying to leverage quantum computing, which could create faster and more accurate simulations of real-world materials, to design lighter and stronger aircraft metals, Roelofs said.