Aviation giant backs South Yorkshire expertise

STEELMAKER Tata Steel has secured an important new approval for its laboratory testing procedures from an aviation giant.

Tata’s Speciality Steels business in South Yorkshire has been backed by aircraft engine manufacturer General Electric Aviation.

The laboratory approval, called GE-S-400, was awarded after GE Aviation completed an audit of Tata Steel’s laboratories in Rotherham and Stocksbridge last month.

GE Aviation is the latest aircraft engine maker to endorse Tata Steel’s manufacturing capabilities. Tata already has approvals from Rolls-Royce, Pratt and Whitney and Snecma (part of the French SAFRAN aerospace group).

Richard Farnsworth, technology and development director for Tata Steel's Speciality Steels business, said: “Across the world there are currently 16,000 aircraft engines on order and GE Aviation and its partners will be making about two-thirds of them.

“This new laboratory approval will make it easier for our customers to use our steel products in the engines made by GE Aviation.

“This approval is the latest endorsement of Tata Steel's expertise from a leading aerospace manufacturer and will ensure that suppliers of GE Aviation can count on us for their steel requirements. We want to support the growing demand for aerospace steels, and this laboratory approval means our testing and certification now meets our customers’ requirements.”

Richard Bell, commercial director at Speciality Steels, said: “This approval marks a significant milestone in our development as a global aerospace supplier and coincides with the completion of an £6.5m investment project at the Stocksbridge site to install and commission new equipment to increase the manufacture of aerospace steels.”

The completed investment scheme includes two new vacuum arc remelting furnaces and specialist testing equipment, as well as a new ultrasonic immersion testing facility.

This expansion takes the number of VAR furnaces at Speciality Steels to nine, representing a 30 per cent increase in remelt capacity, and will enable Tata Steel to support the increasingly specialist requirements of the world's leading aerospace manufacturers.

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