Success Highlights:
A celebrated U.S. aircraft engine manufacturer was among the first U.S. corporations to establish collaborative partnerships with former Soviet engineers and scientists following the USSR implosion in 1991.
Pratt & Whitney, a business unit of Connecticut-based United Technologies Corporation (UTC), began work with the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine, a world-recognized facility for advanced technologies in welding and joining of materials. In 1993, the partners formed a joint venture, Pratt & Whitney-Paton, to focus on development of gas turbine airfoil coatings and repair technologies.
UTC, meanwhile, also embarked on numerous business ventures in Russia, most notably in aerospace technologies. These efforts by UTC and its companies were an important factor in meeting the immediate employment needs of Russian scientific and engineering personnel who otherwise would have been unemployed in the dismal post-Soviet economic environment.
In 1994, UTC helped to found the USIC and to launch the IPP program to assist former Soviet weapons of mass destruction personnel to re-direct their unique talents toward development of civilian technologies for peaceful purposes.
Since then, Pratt & Whitney has participated in several IPP projects focused on welding, coatings and brazing processes. Pratt’s U.S. national lab partners have included Argonne, Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, and Sandia.
Today Pratt & Whitney-Paton, the company’s joint venture in Kyiv, designs, manufactures and sells high-tech coating equipment and materials, in addition to providing coating and repair services for gas turbine engine parts to Western, Russian and Ukrainian customers. The company, with 90 employees in Ukraine, has expanded its sales base with customers in the U.S., Japan, Singapore, Germany and other countries. PW-Paton has received U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) repair station license and other certifications.
In one ongoing project, PW-Paton is developing new brazing and welding repair technologies for nickel-base superalloys. These alloys are used extensively in both land and air based turbine engines. While prized for their ability to withstand extremely high temperatures, this same characteristic makes nickel-base alloys relatively difficult to weld and repair. PW-Paton experts are searching for an innovative, cost-effective solution to this problem.
“This latest technology will enable us to re-manufacture original or refurbish damaged turbine components,” says Andrew Raschuk, PW-Paton general manager. “By offering clients an economical process, we expect to broaden our access to the Ukrainian and Russian industrial gas turbine and aviation markets.”
The U.S. and Ukrainian partners also are experimenting with several cutting-edge technologies that might be applied to these parts. One method is a microplasma technique that uses a deposited filler metal powder on the surface for repairing and rebuilding worn surfaces. A second process utilizes electron-beam melting. The third technology developed by Ukrainian scientists at Paton involves brazing using unique filler metals and an arc brazing process.
Pratt & Whitney’s success in Ukraine and its decade-long involvement in the IPP program is an inspiring example of U.S. corporate commitment to building a new world of economic prosperity and global security.
United Technologies Corporation: www.utc.com