TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Lightweight metals engineering and manufacturing firm Alcoa on Tuesday said it would invest $25-million at its power and propulsion manufacturing facility in Hampton, Virginia, to scale up its manufacturing capabilities for lightweight high-volume jet engine blades.

This investment supports Alcoa’s strategy of profitably growing its aerospace business, which had revenues totalling $4-billion in 2013. The company expects its aerospace sales to grow between 8% and 9% year-on-year.

At the end of last month, the company said it had broken ground to build a new plant to make nickel-based super alloy jet engine parts for commercial aircraft in Indiana.

These investments are intended to boost profits from its downstream business segments, which manufacture products such as beverage can packaging, heavy-truck and trailer components and aircraft fuselages, to offset weaker aluminium prices.

The significant aluminium producer said it would add equipment for a new production line and modify existing machinery at the Hampton facility to produce the blades, which were mainly made from nickel-based super alloys used in next-generation aircraft engines.

Alcoa would use the latest in advanced manufacturing technology such as robotics and digital X-ray for improved product inspections.

The expansion would start this month and was expected to be complete by the fourth quarter of next year. The company expected to add at least 75 new, full-time employees over three years.

Alcoa developed this process technology, called enhanced equiax casting through five years of research and development (R&D) at the Alcoa Power and Propulsion Research Centre, in Whitehall, Michigan, supported by the Alcoa Technical Centre, the world’s largest light metals R&D centre based outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The lighter and more aerodynamically efficient blades can be used to retrofit existing or build next-generation aircraft engines, such as the latest engines for large commercial aircraft, including narrow- and wide-body airplanes. Engines for narrow-body aircraft are among the top selling jet engines in the world, the company said.

“This technology and investment further demonstrate how Alcoa is executing [its] strategy to aggressively capture demand in the fast-growing aerospace market,” Alcoa chairperson and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said.

Alcoa would receive about $2-million in state and local incentives and a $1.3-million exemption on sales and use tax for selecting Hampton, Virginia, for this investment.