--- title: "Ceramic AM takes turbine production to the next level" url: https://www.voxelmatters.com/ceramic-am-takes-turbine-production-to-the-next-level/ date: 2026-07-29 modified: 2026-07-30 lang: en author: "Tess Boissonneault" description: "Every time you board a plane, the most critical element in getting you to your destination—whether business or pleasure—is the jet engine. Jet engines power most types of aircraft today..." categories: - "Ceramic Additive Manufacturing" - "Sponsored" tags: - "future" image: https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Prodways-eBook-July-2026_01-640x425.jpg word_count: 1629 --- # Ceramic AM takes turbine production to the next level Every time you board a plane, the most critical element in getting you to your destination—whether business or pleasure—is the jet engine. Jet engines power most types of aircraft today and are able to propel these massive vessels thanks to a multi-stage process in which air is sucked in, compressed, mixed with fuel, and combusted, resulting in gas expansion and a powerful thrust. This process, known as the Brayton thermodynamic cycle, is enabled by a complex and carefully engineered structure that in large part relies on the performance of turbine blades. Positioned right after the engine’s combustion chamber, these turbine blades essentially convert the expanding gases into rotational mechanical energy that powers the compressor and keeps the engine running continuously. This means that the turbine blades are exposed to incredibly high temperatures (as well as thermal flux), extreme centrifugal loads, chemically aggressive gas flow, and continuous vibration. In order to be suitable for an aircraft, these turbines must also be able to withstand all these conditions for thousands of flight hours. ![Ceramic AM takes turbine production to the next level](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Prodways-eBook-July-2026_04-340x227.jpg)Turbine engine with longitudinal section for studying arrangement of blades and combustion chambers All that to say, the performance of jet engine turbines is absolutely critical to flight in our modern world and growing demands for greater fuel efficiency in the aerospace industry are pushing turbine engineering to new heights. As we’ll see, additive manufacturing, and ceramic AM in particular, are enabling aerospace OEMs to make breakthroughs in turbine design and performance. At [Prodways](https://www.voxelmatters.directory/company/prodways/), for instance, [the company’s CERAM PRO industrial ceramic AM systems are facilitating a more efficient production approach](https://www.voxelmatters.com/ceram-pro-prodways-deepens-commitment-to-ceramic-am/) for turbine blades while simultaneously unlocking higher performing turbine structures.  ## Engineering at its limits When designing a turbine blade there are three key constraints that aerospace engineers must account for: thermal extremes, mechanical loading, and aerodynamic erosion. This triple constraint makes jet engine turbines amongst the most demanding structures from an engineering perspective, which rely on a combination of high-performance materials and innovative design. In terms of thermal stresses, turbine blades must withstand gas path temperatures upwards of 1,500°C. Even some of the most robust and resilient materials, such as nickel-based superalloys, can only withstand exposure to temperatures reaching in the range of 1,100°C and 1,150°C. This means that turbines must be optimized for heat management, with integrated cooling architectures that keep operating temperatures manageable for the metal in question. The structure of turbine blades must also account for centrifugal loads equivalent to several tons of tensile stress—generated by rotational speeds exceeding 10,000RPM—as well as aerodynamic erosion caused by particulate impacts, micro-abrasion, and boundary layer destabilization.     Turbine structures therefore rely on geometries that mitigate these wear factors. Features like winding internal cooling channels, pin-fin arrays, and microscopic film cooling holes on the blade’s surface all work to protect the blades from the acute heat of the combusted gas and keep them running. As Prodways says: “Manufacturing a turbine blade is not simply a precision task. It is the convergence of materials science, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, and process engineering—all operating simultaneously at the edge of what is physically possible.” Ultimately, the better the cooling structures perform, the more efficiently and consistently the turbine blades operate, which leads to greater fuel efficiency for aircraft. ## When traditional production falls short As the aerospace industry has realized, however, traditional production approaches for turbine blades are limited in terms of the geometries they can produce and therefore struggle to create the turbines needed to power next-gen, more efficient jet engines.  For over half a century, investment casting has been the established method for manufacturing turbine blades. This process relies on a series of steps, including: negative die machining from metal, ceramic core manufacturing, wax injection around the ceramic core, shell coating, wax burnout, superalloy casting, shell removal, and finally ceramic core removal. This approach, while broadly used and industrially mature, is rigid and cannot easily accommodate design modifications needed to improve turbine function. As Prodways says, a design change as minor as a 0.5 mm adjustment can require new tooling sets for die and core production, redesigned and requalified ceramic cores, and a revalidated casting cycle. In terms of lead time, a single iteration to improve performance can therefore take anywhere from six to 18 months.   Not only that, but traditional manufacturing workflows for turbine blades are limited in terms of the geometries they can produce. In short, the design of internal cooling channels is limited by the fact that ceramic cores must withstand extraction and firing without fracturing. This means that the best design for thermodynamic performance is often not what is delivered and that design intent is constrained by process limitation.  “From a systems engineering perspective, the bottleneck is no longer manufacturing precision, it is manufacturing adaptability under geometric freedom constraints,”  Prodways says. “This is the structural problem that Prodways ceramic additive manufacturing is designed to solve.” ## CERAM PRO technology takes off  [Prodways’ ceramic AM is offered via its CERAM PRO 3D printer series](https://www.voxelmatters.com/ceram-pro-fits-the-bill-for-semiconductor-sector/) based on its MOVINGLight DLP technology. Built for industrial production, the company’s CERAM PRO machines have proven valuable within the aerospace industry in the production of molds and ceramic cores for turbines. This capability not only simplifies workflows for turbine production (by eliminating the need for die machining and molds for ceramic cores), it also unlocks greater design freedom and iterative agility.  ![Ceramic AM takes turbine production to the next level](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Prodways-eBook-July-2026_03-340x200.jpg) Within ceramic AM, CERAM PRO platforms are being used by select aerospace manufacturers for a number of reasons. First, the technology is based on a mobile high-resolution optical engine that enables incredibly high-resolution printing—critical for achieving the aerodynamic surfaces required in turbines. Prodways also points out that the MOVINGLight architecture has been engineered for industrial throughput and larger production formats. This allows aerospace manufacturers to accelerate development and iteration cycles while at the same time maintaining consistent production quality. Moreover, [MOVINGLight is compatible with a range of technical ceramic materials, including high-viscosity ceramic slurries with consistent and dense load ratios](https://www.voxelmatters.com/prodways-presents-new-movinglight-promaker-v10-ceramic-3d-printer/). This means that aerospace manufacturers can work with high-performance ceramic materials and benefit from uniform green part density. Consistent green part density is critical to achieving predictable sintering shrink rates and ensuring industrial-level production.  Chief among Prodways’ materials for the production of cores for turbine blades is SILICA SICAST 1200, a technical ceramic specifically engineered for investment casting applications in industries like aerospace, energy, and automotive. The rapid-curing material delivers a combination of high thermal shock resistance and chemical and mechanical leachability, which are necessary for turbine casting. Another significant benefit for aerospace OEMs looking to evolve their production is the fact that CERAM PRO solutions produce foundry cores directly from a digital model. This means that design changes can be made within a digital ecosystem and then iterated rapidly as a physical part. Overall, Prodways’ ceramic AM technology reduces tooling requirements within turbine production, creates a more seamless and agile workflow, and unlocks greater design freedom for enhanced cooling performance (i.e. more complex internal channels, undercuts, optimized surface areas). ## Honeywell’s digital foundry The benefits of Prodways’ ceramic AM solutions for turbine production are not theoretical: [today, aerospace engineers and manufacturers are leveraging the technology to design and build next-gen jet engines](https://www.voxelmatters.com/honeywell-uses-ceramic-3d-printing-from-prodways-for-its-jet-engines/).  At Honeywell Aerospace, a U.S.-based manufacturer of aircraft engines and avionics, Prodways’ technology is playing an important role in the development of turbine blades. As first revealed in 2024, the aerospace company uses the industrial CERAM PRO 365 3D printer to 3D print investment casting molds for turbines, a process that has radically accelerated its development cycles and facilitated design changes.  “Traditional iteration cycles of 12 to 18 months are reduced to approximately 7 to 8 weeks,” Prodways says. “Design modifications that previously required full tooling reconstruction—often exceeding $1 million per iteration—are now executed as digital updates followed by direct ceramic fabrication.” The integration of ceramic AM into Honeywell’s turbine casting process has unlocked what Prodways calls a “digital foundry model”, in which design and fabrication are decoupled from physical tooling cycles. Now, the casting process can be broken down into the following steps:  - CAD design and optimization - Ceramic mold 3D printing - Casting and mold removal - Turbine blade testing and validation If any design modifications are needed, the CAD design is updated digitally and the cycle begins again, all without the need for any major tooling overhauls.  ## AM drives shift in aerospace The aerospace industry has been an enthusiastic adopter of AM since the technology’s early days and it’s clear why. For turbine development and production alone, ceramic AM has enabled a paradigm shift, in which design intent and functional performance are unbound by traditional manufacturing constraints. Not only that, the technology facilitates the development of new turbine designs, which is key to achieving greater efficiency and fuel economy in planes.  ![Ceramic AM takes turbine production to the next level](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Prodways-eBook-July-2026_02-340x225.jpg) Prodways’ ceramic AM solutions are playing a role not only in the adoption of ceramic AM for turbine production but also in the industrialization of the digital foundry model. This is thanks to its systems’ geometry control, rheology stability, sintering predictability, and qualification-compatible outputs.  Beyond turbine casting applications, ceramic additive manufacturing may support the development of future aerospace manufacturing processes involving advanced ceramic materials. While such applications remain largely in development today, high-resolution ceramic AM technologies can help accelerate material evaluation, design exploration, and process qualification activities. “The aerospace industry is entering a regime where performance is no longer limited by design capability, but by manufacturing infrastructure,” Prodways concludes. “Turbine blades are not just high-performance components. They are indicators of a broader structural transition: from tooling-dependent manufacturing to digitally controlled ceramic production systems.” With its CERAM PRO range, MOVINGLight architecture, and specially engineered ceramic slurries for investment casting, Prodways is contributing to the evolution of next-generation aerospace casting workflows. [***This article first appeared in the VoxelMatters Aerospace AM Focus 2026 eBook – click here to read more.***](https://www.voxelmatters.com/voxelmatters-aerospace-am-focus-2026-ebook/)