The US Army awarded contracts to GE Aviation and a Honeywell/Pratt & Whitney joint venture to deliver preliminary designs of a 3,000shp-class turboshaft engine to power a broad range of military rotorcraft.
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The contract allows for the Army to conduct a preliminary design review of the engine. The Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama made the awards under the service’s long-running Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP).
The US Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded contracts valued at a combined USD256 million to two companies to begin the process of developing a new helicopter powerplant, it announced on 23 August.
The ATEC design is called the HPW3000 while GE will develop the GE3000 engine, under the $154 million, $102 million contracts awarded respectively. The Army issued a request for proposals for the ITEP preliminary design phase last September. The Army that year plans to select one engine from the competing designs.
The GE3000 engine features advanced technologies such as high temperature ceramic matrix composite (CMC) materials, additive manufactured parts and advanced 3D aerodynamic designs to meet the Army’s aggressive performance requirements for future helicopter missions.
The Army’s new engine will be created to save 25 percent on fuel consumption at 3,000-shaft horsepower, as well as boost the horsepower-to-weight ratio by 65 percent and engine-design life by 20 percent. “We are very confident in the engine design and in the results we’ve seen in testing so far”.
ITEP will replace the engine in roughly 3,000 UH-60 Black Hawk and AH-64 Apache helicopters with a more powerful and fuel-efficient one.
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The ATEC joint venture of Honeywell (NYSE: HON) and Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies Corporation (NYSE:UTX), brings together the world-class engineering, manufacturing, and production capabilities of two industry-leading companies perfectly suited for accomplishing the goals of the Army’s ITE program.
