Böhler Edelstahl, a voestalpine group company, has secured a new contract with Rolls Royce for the supply of rotating engine disks. The contract with Rolls-Royce extends over a period of ten years, with the first deliveries scheduled for 2020.
For a number of years, voestalpine has supplied Rolls-Royce with high-quality steel alloys for engine components from its Kapfenberg facility in the Austrian federal state of Styria.
In late 2018, a new EUR 40 million high-speed forging line went into operation at the Kapfenberg site, creating the ideal technical conditions for the manufacture of such high-tech products.
The current major contract, secured by Böhler Edelstahl, marking the company's entry into the market for rotating engine disks. The disk materials must meet particularly stringent requirements, having to operate in conditions of up to 16,500 rotations per minute and temperatures of more than 2,000°C inside an engine.
Wolfgang Eder, chairman of the management board of voestalpine AG, commented: "Over the past ten years, we have established ourselves as a leading global supplier to the aerospace industry as a consequence of our expertise in special steels. In both commercial and technological terms, the contract with Rolls-Royce is the largest breakthrough we’ve had in the engine segment to date and confirms the value of our consistent focus on quality and innovation."
According to voestalpine, around the world aerospace is regarded as a long-term growth market: according to market forecasts, 40,000 new aircraft will be built over the coming 20 years.
Franz Rotter, a member of the management board of voestalpine AG and head of the high performance metals division, said: "We laid the technological foundations at Group company voestalpine Böhler Edelstahl at an early stage in order to benefit from this growth." He said that the signing of the contract was the result of intensive innovation and investment activities over the past years.