Chromalloy broke ground on $5mln ceramic core production facility

Florida Governor Rick Scott joined Chromalloy officials and employees as they broke ground in Tampa, Florida.

According to Chromalloy, the new 40,000 square foot production facility will be built adjacent to the company’s newly operational $30 million industrial investment foundry.

“This is an important day for Chromalloy, Tampa Bay and the State of Florida,” said Armand F. Lauzon, Jr., President. “We are pleased to be a vital member of the community with a new world-class foundry -- and now a new companion core production facility that will help us better serve our customers worldwide.”

The ceramic core facility will be built in 2011 and online by the first quarter of 2012.

The company’s new 150,000 square foot investment casting foundry in Tampa – Chromalloy Castings – was unveiled in December 2010 and is fully online. The foundry expanded the company’s casting capability to pour up to one million pounds of superalloy turbine components and parts for aerospace, aero-derivative and industrial gas turbine engines.

Ceramic cores are utilized in the investment casting process to form complex cooling passages within the components, which are necessary to operate effectively in the hot and highly stress sections of gas turbine engines.

“The new facility will supply the critical ceramic cores used to cast superalloy turbine engine vanes and blades,” Lauzon said. “Being co-located with the foundry, it will help us to serve our customers with even stronger production times.”

Newly-elected Governor Scott met with company officials and employees after the groundbreaking ceremony.
Chromalloy’s parent company, Sequa Corporation, has corporate headquarters in Tampa. The company also operates a joint venture company, BELAC LLC, in nearby Oldsmar, Fla., also in the Tampa Bay area. BELAC is a producer of turbine engine components for aerospace turbines.

The company, with 52 locations worldwide, casts components for the “hot section” or critical gas path of the engine, for the entire range of jet aircraft engines as well as marine, aero-derivative and heavy frame industrial turbines, including the largest and most complex turbine blades and vanes for power generation engines (IGT). That includes vanes, nozzles, High Pressure Turbine (HPT) blades and other components using several methods including equiaxed, directionally solidified, and advanced, single crystal casting technologies.

Chromalloy provides design, engineering, tooling, machining, repairs, coatings and cast parts for turbine engines in aerospace, aero-derivative and industrial gas turbine (IGT) applications. Customers include commercial airlines, the U.S. Air Force, power generation and offshore platform operators, and marine operators including the U.S. Navy and cruise lines.

Chromalloy is the world’s largest independent supplier of technologically advanced repairs, coatings, and FAA-approved replacement parts for turbine airfoils and other critical engine components for commercial airlines, the military and industrial turbine engine applications. The company’s replacement parts for aircraft engines are FAA certified to meet or exceed the performance, reliability and durability specifications of original equipment manufacturer parts.

In support of marine and land-based gas turbines, Chromalloy employs identical engineering disciplines used to produce its FAA-certified parts.