Pratt and Whitney 3D Prints the TJ150 Engine With 60% Additive Content

Pratt and Whitney has finished a major round of demonstration testing on its additively manufactured TJ150 expendable engine. Nearly 60% of the engine by volume is now produced with additive manufacturing, including key static and rotating hardware. The milestone, announced at Farnborough International Airshow on July 20, 2026, moves the concept of metal 3D printing from experimental to operational for this engine family.

Why the TJ150 Matters

The TJ150 is an expendable engine, the type used in target drones and some cruise missile applications. These engines run hard and are discarded after a mission, so the production volume is unpredictable and the cost per unit is a longstanding problem. Additive manufacturing attacks both problems at once: it removes dozens of individual parts from the bill of materials and eliminates tooling that would otherwise sit idle between production runs.

In its press release, Pratt and Whitney said it has consolidated more than 50 individual hot section components into a handful of additively manufactured parts. It also successfully tested a 3D-printed rotating turbine wheel during the demonstration. Those two reductions, part count and turbine wheel geometry, are where most of the weight and cost live in a turbomachinery system.

Additive at Scale for Defense

Jill Albertelli, president of Military Engines at Pratt and Whitney, said the approach serves a real operational need. For expendable engines where missions can last minutes or hours, the ability to redesign and respin a component quickly matters more than conventional supply chain economics. She noted the lessons from the TJ150 will carry into the Pratt and Whitney Valox engine family as well.

The TJ150 demonstration tested material behavior in an operational environment, not just on a test stand. That distinction matters. A turbine wheel printed in superalloy powder that survives a static tensile test can still fail when subjected to rapid thermal cycles and high centrifugal loads under thrust. Passing the demo means the AM part lived through those conditions in a way that opened the door to higher-rate production.

What This Means for Defense Additive

The broader defense additive landscape has been watching this demonstration closely. The F135 program is also moving toward AM-made components, with Safran Aero Boosters and BMT Aerospace recently signing on to produce large-scale titanium parts for that engine. But the TJ150 is a different kind of proof point because it is not a legacy fighter engine being incrementally modified. It is a design taken to 60% AM from the ground up, tested at full operational parameters, and now at a volume that justifies consistent production.

Pratt and Whitney's method was not to print everything at once. The company said it consolidated parts in stages, starting with hardware that offered the biggest manufacturing complexity reduction per gram of weight removed. New nozzles, combustor liners, and bearing housings were early targets. That phased approach keeps risk manageable, which is exactly what a defense program needs when it has a mission to support.