Innovation &
Collaboration
Curtiss-Wright is well known for its technical innovations and tackling the most difficult of engineering problems. We strive to build upon our established market share positions in our key end markets by strategically investing in R&D to drive innovation while continuing to ensure Curtiss-Wright’s technology leadership and alignment with industry growth dynamics and key secular trends.
Through our Innovation Operating System, we are heightening the visibility of our efforts and ensuring the continuous funneling of new ideas across the organization. In many ways, our efforts to drive innovation encourage collaboration across our businesses, while creating new opportunities to provide unique solutions to our customers.
Our efforts to drive innovation encourage collaboration across our businesses while creating new opportunities to provide unique solutions to our customers.
We look to build upon crossover technologies that leverage our deep customer relationships and the breadth of our technology, and also strengthen our combined portfolio of Aerospace & Defense and Commercial businesses. As we leverage our expertise in these technologies, we also maximize our return on investment across our portfolio. In 2022, we achieved numerous crossover technology wins across the portfolio where, for example, we continue to take advantage of shifts in the development of commercial technologies that are transitioning at a faster rate into the defense space, which not only provides opportunities for revenue growth, but also the potential for further operating margin expansion.
Curtiss-Wright employees brief CEO Lynn Bamford on the performance and efficiency of an AP1000® Reactor Coolant Pump from the test loop control room.
We would like to highlight several examples of our innovative ideas and continued collaboration that are greatly contributing to our already strong order book and are expected to provide opportunities to generate long‑term profitable growth for years to come.
One of those examples is our electro-mechanical actuation technology, which was originally developed for industrial applications, and is now driving new business in our A&D markets. We recently secured a key win supporting the new Enduring Shield ground-based launcher system from Dynetics for the U.S. Army.
Seawater Injection Pump Curtiss-Wright’s innovative seawater injection pump brings “topside-less” pumping to the subsea oil and gas market, combining decades of canned motor pump experience with advanced sea water lubricated bearings. It is expected to provide long maintenance-free service life while eliminating the need for expensive oil platform based barrier fluid systems
In commercial aerospace, we secured first-of-a-kind wins for our actuation technology with Airbus in 2022, expanding our footprint on the future A350F aircraft, as well as innovative technology on their UpNext demonstrator project. Elsewhere, innovation in our sensors technology has led to the development of cutting-edge, high reliability products to improve system performance within more extreme temperature areas of engines.
Building on our long-standing commercial and industrial capabilities for our surface treatment applications, we have developed a critical laser peening application on the F-35 program to strengthen the aircraft’s frame without adding any additional material or weight.
In defense electronics, we are consistently directing investments in R&D to ensure that Curtiss-Wright remains a leading supplier of innovative solutions to the Aerospace & Defense Industry. Through close partnerships with government and industry, and in alignment with leading technical standards, our rugged commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies are helping to shape the development of innovative open standards to enable new capabilities, while helping to modernize military platforms rapidly and cost-effectively with solutions that adhere to the DoD’s mandate for solutions based on the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA).
Outside of defense, there are significant opportunities emerging for Generation IV Advanced and Small Modular Reactor (SMRs), which could provide tremendous upside for Curtiss-Wright’s commercial nuclear business. In 2022, we announced a strategic agreement with X-energy to provide three critical systems for their new Xe-100 advanced SMR, which was achieved through strong collaboration across many teams within Curtiss-Wright. We are working with numerous advanced and small modular reactor designers to gain a foothold and deliver Curtiss-Wright’s innovative safety-critical solutions to this market.
Finally, we are leveraging our canned motor pump expertise, developed for the commercial nuclear market with our reactor coolant pumps on the Westinghouse AP1000® reactor, to now develop a unique cross‑over application for the subsea pumping market with our innovative seawater injection pump, as shown in the upper right, which is expected to drive improved efficiency and reliability in subsea oil and gas production.
These are only but a few of the many exciting technical innovations and collaborative efforts that will drive enormous value to our customers and ensure that Curtiss-Wright remains well-positioned for long‑term growth.