GE Global Research

My name is Jim Vartuli and I am currently the manager of the Advanced Ceramics Laboratory at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY. Back in 2000 I was part of a team working on the development of a suite of state-of-the-art technologies that include a new Gemstone scintillator material, HALO data acquisition system (DAS), and HD detector calibration and reconstruction algorithms. These developments have since been implemented by GE Healthcare (GEHC) and this week one product that came out of that research, the Discovery CT750HD is being highlighted at a GEHC event at Rockefellar Plaza in New York City. Developed to meet the demand of GE Healthcare’s Computed Tomography customers who desired to see more details with less x-ray dosage, the Discovery CT750HD, is an Ultra-premium High-Definition Computed Tomography (HDCT) system that delivers faster and clearer images with significant reduction in x-ray dose.

In a CT system, the scintillator converts x-rays to light, which is translated into electrical signals by a photodiode. In the 30+ year history of CT imaging, only 2 scintillator materials have been used – neither of which satisfied the stringent stability, efficiency, uniformity, and speed requirements we thought would be possible with a new HDCT system. The new scintillator we were working to develop had to have at least 50X faster speed, and meet or exceed the other primary factors of light output, transparency, afterglow, radiation damage, density, stopping power, spectral match to the photodiode, and environmental and temperature stability.

The research on this new scintillator material, that later came to be called Gemstone, began in October 2000 with the simple vision of delivering a CT detector that would provide a step-change improvement in image quality over on the competitors in the market. By the end of 2001, we examined over 150,000 possible material compositions, processed hundreds of unique compositions to converge on the origins of Gemstone. It took a full 3 years to obtain a composition close to today’s Gemstone performance. In late 2004, GE Healthcare started a pilot facility in Milwaukee. The pilot facility was later expanded to a state-of-the art clean room and full-scale manufacturing facility.

The primary goal for this new scintillator was to have very fast speed while meeting other performance requirements. After evaluating hundreds of thousands of materials as potential candidates, we finally selected a rare earth based garnet material as the new scintillator. This material has a cubic garnet structure that can enable high transparency without having to grow a single crystal. Cerium was selected as the activator to leverage its fast transition and its emission spectra, which is well-matched to the silicon photodiode’s sensitivity curve. Heavy rare earths are selected to increase stopping power of the scintillator to achieve higher quantum detection efficiency. Extensive research was conducted to optimize the composition in order to achieve the best performance for CT applications. The final composition of this material not only delivered performance, it also enabled a robust manufacturing process.

Hi all, my name is Peter Finnigan and I am the manager of the Advanced Material Systems Applications Lab at the GE Global Research Center. I often am asked to give tours of our Composites Lab to visiting heads of corporations, reporters, and Senior GE leadership from across the Company. In addition to discussing composites technology, I like to explain the synergistic relationship between GE Global Research and our GE Divisions in terms of the success factors that we have forged as a team. As an example, we have collaborated with our Jet Engine Division on two stellar, industry-leading, composite components that have lead to real product differentiation because of performance and weight, namely composite wide chord fan blades and braided composite fan containment cases (Figure 1) for our large commercial engines that power the Boeing 777 and Dreamliner aircraft. Besides innovative design, novel material systems, advanced manufacturing techniques, and test, the secret to success has been commitment and constancy of purpose over more than two decades.

The fan blade and fan case have very demanding but very different mechanical requirements to pass FAA certification. Among other things, the fan blade must be able to withstand an 8lb bird impact event, while the fan case needs to be able to contain a fan blade release under full power. These requirements lead to quite different solutions. To speed development, we have developed and validated very sophisticated analytical models and techniques that enable us to accurately simulate the transient dynamic response of these very complicated events (Figure 2). These model can take anywhere from one to three weeks to execute on our fastest high-performance computers. We have validated these models through the use of progressively complex testing (Figure 3), starting with coupons and panels and moving to subscale rig and ultimately full-engine tests.Because of cost and schedule, our goal and track record is to get the FAA certification tests right the first time. Despite our many successes, we are not satisfied. We need to continue to push the envelope in terms of weight and performance to get to the next break though in composite technology that will lead to more fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly engines. We are looking at new composite material systems (fibers, fiber architecture, and resins) and manufacturing technology. The analytical methods and experimental validation will provide the foundation on which to continue to advance the state-of-the-art, and speed new product introduction.

This is truly an exciting time to be involved with composites. The opportunities are exploding both inside and outside GE. I am very fortunate that GE has many divisions that are increasing the use of composites in their products. More about that later; for now I have some experimental fabrication techniques to attend to and a telecom with my engine teammates in Cincinnati.

Hi All!

I have several exciting things to tell you about our work with Imagination Markets. For those of you that haven’t been following along, we’ve designed a version of information markets for use as an idea generation and decisioning tool. We call these markets “Imagination Markets.” They help us answer tough business questions such as “What new technology should we be investing in?” and “What new products should we be developing?” We start the market by posing a specific question, such as “What new technology should we be investing in?” Participants can then propose their ideas; these ideas are then represented as securities on a virtual financial market. Participants trade based on which idea they think best meets the business need — buying shares of the ideas they like and selling shares of the ideas they don’t like. As the market progresses over a 3-week period, feedback is given on the ideas presented (in the form of trades) and new ideas are suggested which may springboard of other ideas. At the end of the market, the ideas are rank ordered by the aggregation of the opinions of the participants (price). The highest priced ideas are directly pursued or pitched to the business leader as a future initiative. It’s a fun and effective way to get everyone involved in the innovation process and to tap our most valuable resources: our employees! We started with an initial pilot of Imagination Markets back in 2005. You can read about our pilot in the July 2007 issue of Information Systems Frontiers. Since that pilot, we’ve executed 10 Imagination markets across many businesses within GE.

Now that I’ve gotten you all up to date, let me tell you about our two recent happenings:

First, earlier this month, I gave an interview to InformationWeek talking about our original prototype and how we’re incorporating the tool into our overall Innovation process.

Second, and even cooler, is that we’ve recently executed our first GE-Wide Imagination Market! Until now, our Imagination Markets have typically been applied to a single business or, in one case, crossed several GE businesses. But earlier this month, we launched and completed a 3-week GE-Wide Imagination Market, hosted and championed by Beth Comstock, GE’s Chief Marketing Officer, and Patia McGrath, GE’s Global Director for Innovation and Strategic Connections. Over 1400 employees from across GE participated, representing over 170 business segments, from Asset Management to Water & Process Technologies, and practically everything in between. We had participants from 42 countries — from Australia to Venezuela. Over the 3 week market, the participants suggested over 220 business model innovation ideas, 56 of which were submitted onto the market. The top three ideas will be pitched to GE’s Marketing Council, which is led by Beth Comstock.

I’ll keep you up to date as things progress!

We recently hosted a multi-day Battery Technology symposium here at GE Global Research that brought together technical experts, industry leaders, government officials, customers and suppliers interested in advancing energy storage technologies.The event explored market demand in the transportation and energy sectors, chemistry advancements, regulatory issues and the economics of mass adaptation of batteries as the world becomes more electrified.

We first started thinking about the idea of hosting a battery symposium earlier this year as a way to rally the numerous, rapidly growing activities within GE. Our original idea was to run a purely technical conference to probe the state of technology and assess the opportunities for research advancement. Of course that appealed to our scientists, but offered little distinction relative to any of the great technology conferences already out there. That’s when we expanded our thoughts on what could be possible if we were to more broadly tap into our resources and connections, including business application developments, research efforts, investment activities, as well as existing partnerships and collaborations. This expanded vision incorporated a real global perspective on energy trends, market drivers and application needs.

As you can see from the symposium agenda, we were able to pull together an all-star line-up of speakers and participants. The result was a broad based discussion of critical political factors, economic forces, market drivers, and technical issues. As interesting and insightful as the presentations and panel discussion were, the connections that were made over dinner, at the receptions, and during breaks were equally as valuable.

Over the course of the event, terrific perspective and insight was offered on projections of explosive growth in this sector, the key factors that will affect the timing and magnitude of the developments, and the performance that will be demanded from battery technology to make it all happen. This is an exciting time for the world, and certainly battery technology is an interesting growth area for GE.

As a result of the Symposium we better understand the opportunities and challenges of working in this space. For more information, including presentation copies from the event, click here for more information.We will continue to update the site content, including videosin the coming weeks. Additionally, the event generated some great media coverage. For a complete roundup of coverage, check outgereports.com. Click here for a direct link tothe coverage.