Saturn NGO

Company Info

NPO Saturn is the engine-building company specializing in development, production and an after-sale service of turbine jets for military and civil aviation, power and gas-distributing generating units and also warships and civil courts.

The enterprise is a part of the United Engine Corporation (UEC) which is subsidiary company (created for management of engine-building assets) by UIC Oboronprom.

NPO Saturn implements all stages of product lifecycle – from design and marketing researches before serial production and service maintenance and has modern technological production which allows to make parts of the gas turbine equipment of different degree of complexity, different standard sizes with a broad spectrum of mechanical characteristics.

The park of the metalworking equipment of the company exceeds 12 thousand units, including metallurgical - about 2 thousand units. At the same time the automated lines and software-controlled machines in a number of the directions of serial production make more than 40% of a total quantity of the equipment.

The production base NPO Saturn includes foundry, welding production, mechanical, heat treatment, processing of metals pressure, instrumental production.

Uniform center of additive technologies (CAT) Rostec

In March, 2017 it became known that Rostec begins implementation of additive technologies by production of perspective Russian turbine jets which will be certified in 2025 - 2030. For this purpose Rostec creates the uniform Center of additive technologies.

The uniform center of additive technologies (CAT) will be created based on the Rybinsk NPO Saturn (enters into UEC) – all are provided the perspective and most demanded by the industry directions of additive technologies here.

Based on NPO Saturn the meeting on creation of the uniform Center of Additive Technologies (CAT) of State Corporation Rostec took place in March. Creation of the center of joint development of the additive technologies (AT) was supported by the largest representatives of the Russian aviation industry: OAK, Roskosmos, UEC, Helicopters of Russia, KRET, Tekhnodinamika and also representatives of the Russian-Singapore business council.

"Implementation of additive technologies will allow to lower three times time and to twice reduce the cost of production of serial parts. New turbine jets of UEC which we are going to certify in 2025-2030, certainly, will be executed using additive technologies. The parts made by this method will make up to 20% of lump of the engine. For reduction of an implementation time of AT in production we intend to combine efforts with other Russian companies", – the deputy CEO – the chief designer of UEC Yury Shmotin noted.

The center of additive technologies specializes in production of parts, models and nodes of turbine jets of aviation and land application by methods of layer-by-layer synthesis. The accompanying technologies are here too provided: heat treatment, laser bonding and perforation, the most powerful metallurgical laboratory, computer tomography, electronic microscopy, laboratory of contactless optical digitization and reverse of engineering. The key scientific and technical and technology tasks solved by TsAT: stability augmentation of characteristics of the SCD elements; a possibility of receiving constructions with unique topology; reduction of a cycle and cost of production of parts of a SCD; use in construction of materials which shaping traditional technologies or is impossible, or extremely costly.

On NPO Saturn the technology chain of production of parts is developed and approved by the selection fusing, beginning from development of a 3D model, finishing with a functional part. The innovation design philosophy taking into account new technological capabilities, including the intellectual optimization of topology of parts providing required durability taking into account the direction of the influencing loadings and significant decrease in weight – so-called bionic design is implemented. The center actively participates in works on receiving domestic metalpowder compositions – first of all, the carried-out VIAM. In 2015 - 2016 more than 300 different pilot parts made by the selection fusing of cobalt, titanic alloys, stainless steel successfully passed bench tests as a part of engines.

Use of IT

Management of lifecycle of the aircraft engine

Information systems of NPO Saturn provide support of complete lifecycle of the aviation engine: development, production and operation. In the unified information system of the enterprise more than 6 thousand automated jobs on 6 remote platforms in 5 cities of Russia.

At a stage of development of engines the systems are supported multicriteria by optimization of construction of products, data collection at tests of pilot engines and also configuration management and the digital model of a pilot product.

At a stage of serial production and operation of engines using IT systems configuration management of serial products and deliveries of spare parts, release of technical documentation and assessment and forecasting of technical condition is exercised.

Supercomputer

For April, 2011 the peak capacity of the supercomputer of NPO Saturn - 14.3 Tflops, he takes the 28th place in Top-50.

As the director of information technology of NPO Saturn Yury Zelenkov, their supercomputer told CNews, it is generally used for the calculations connected with turbine jets. As examples of calculation tasks it gave break of a blade of the fan, calculation of processes of burning in the engine combustion chamber, aerodynamic calculations of turbomachines – the compressor, turbines and also hit in the engine of a bird.

According to Zelenkov, thanks to the supercomputer aggregate term of design of products at the enterprise was on average reduced by 2-3 times and allowed to refuse pilot operational development of construction due to its optimization in virtual environment.

"Absolutely it is impossible to refuse tests as it is an obligatory part of a certification process in aircraft, but all certification tests, including - on break of a blade and on runaway of a bird, now we pass from the first", - Zelenkov said.

For calculation of hit of a bird in the engine her body is modelled in the form of an elliptic figure with the set properties, but on certification tests this corpse of a seagull is thrown in the engine. Dead birds engineers receive on special farms where they grow up birds, Zelenkov explains.

So natural tests for hit in the aircraft engine of a foreign object look

The idea of implementation of the ERP system in NPO Saturn failed

Having analyzed a production system of the enterprise, in NPO Saturn instead of implementation of the ERP system for automation of its processes for the purpose of increase in efficiency decided to rebuild processes, the director of information technology of this NPO Yury Zelenkov told in September, 2013.

"There is such law that a managing system should be at least the same complexity or it is more difficult, than managed. We were engaged in comparison of a production system our and "bourgeois" in terms of complexity, and found out that by quantity of objects - production operations to which machines, workers, materials and so on, our system - approximately in 20 become attached times more", - he told TAdviser.

According to the results of the analysis it became obvious that ERP will not earn from the enterprise, he added. According to the estimates of NPO Saturn in order that in it ERP worked also as at the western enterprises, the company needs to have 2 thousand instead of 400 technologists. The enterprise has no such opportunity, Yury Zelenkov says.

Reorganization of production processes included creation in the company of several competence centers on different homogeneous components of turbine jets: for example, separate Competence Centers on shaft, blades, disks, case shaped parts, etc., the Chief information officer of NPO Saturn tells.

The idea of such organization is in that each Competence Center itself was responsible for a full stroke of production, including cost value, ensuring assembly, etc. Cluster analysis showed that by such principle production can be spread out on 7-10 the groups which are almost not crossed among themselves.

One of key theses of such approach, according to the Chief information officer of NPO Saturn, is that management model each this center should be absolutely identical.