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Fine Tubes is among the first Western suppliers to work with NPO Saturn on the Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100.
Fine Tubes (www.finetubes.com), a leading metal tubes manufacturer specialising in the aerospace; medical; chemical process; nuclear; power; and oil and gas sectors is working in partnership with other Western suppliers on this new aircraft design.
The company has fabricated and supplied 6000m of nickel alloy 625 and stainless steel 321 tubing for use in the production of the Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100’s SaM146 engine, developed by NPO Saturn. The SSJ100 is a new template of aircraft; the engine and airframe have been designed together to offer increased levels of economy, performance and environmental efficiency.
Work began in 2000 to create a jet with significantly lower running costs than other commercial planes. This project has been a huge priority to the Russian and French governments since the beginning, aiming to provide ecologically responsible yet high performing engines for the commercial jet market. Sukhoi’s offering is aimed at not only the Russian market, but also intends to compete with Western commercial aircrafts.
Fine Tubes’ role in supporting NPO Saturn in the creation of this jet engine has helped the SaM146 offer a simplified, streamlined and fail-safe design. The chosen tubing material, nickel alloy 625, has a history of use in chemical processes because of its great resistance to a huge scale of temperatures and pressures, but these qualities also make it perfect for use in aerospace engineering.Ronen Day, Managing Director of Fine Tubes commented, “At Fine Tubes our focus is always on finding brand new applications for the materials we process. With every new idea in the aerospace sector come new problems – which our team here at Fine Tubes see as inspiring challenges to be overcome. With new products being introduced all the time, our customers know their project is always at the forefront of engineering and technical capability”.
The past year has seen Fine Tubes ramp up such capabilities and develop even more new products; the kind that make projects like the SSJ100 possible. Its work with NPO Saturn will continue to grow innovation in the commercial jet market and at the moment Russia seems like the one to watch.
Sukhoi attributes its success to “a fusion of Russia’s famed aviation design and production skills with the latest systems from leading aerospace suppliers around the world”. Fine Tubes is proud to be one of those suppliers.