Turbine blade casting development at Pratt & Whitney

Investment casting of cooled turbine blades perfected by Bud Schenck, formerly MIT professor, at Pratt & Whitney in the 1960s. The ceramic insert supplier is also an MIT ceramist grad.

Flemings developed all of this. Investment casting — I passed around the turbine blade. That was really sort of perfected by a guy, Bud Schenck at Pratt & Whitney, but before he went to Pratt & Whitney he was a professor here at MIT. That was in the '60s, making some of these types of parts. The guy who made the ceramic inserts that you cast around is also an MIT ceramist grad, and he started a little firm to make those ceramic parts, which are very fragile. I actually have one in my office; maybe I'll remember to bring it. So MIT has an interesting history, and shape casting processes go back thousands of years or several tens of years depending on what you're looking at. I just wanted to give you a little idea of the significance of some MIT history in these shape casting processes.

---