News for the Aerospace industry



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8th International Friction Stir Welding Symposium

18-20 May 2010, MARITIM Seehotel Timmendorfer Strand, Germany. Register now

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Adhesive Bonding Workshop, TWI Great Abington - Cambridge

24-29 April 2010 - Practical workshop
7-11 June 2010 - Combined theory and practical workshop
14-16 September 2010 - Theory workshop
16-18 November 2010 - Practical workshop

For more information, click here

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Higher productivity laser powder bed deposition (0903-7)

There is a clear industry need to increase the speed of the laser powder bed deposition process, also known as Selective Laser Melting (SLM). The SLM process allows complex parts to be created from CAD files without tooling. It is an agile and environmentally friendly process but is too slow to allow widespread application.

This project will deliver a step change improvement in the time to manufacture a part by substantially increasing the speed of the process bringing together a number of innovations strands in three main areas. These areas relate to the fundamental equipment, including laser source, procedure development for the 'skin and core' approach and the application of the process to industrially relevant components. Development in the three areas above will create significant amounts of IP both individually and when brought to bear on the SLM process. The result will be a technical lead in the field of SLM world-wide giving UK companies a key advantage in this expanding area but also opening up new markets that were not previously viable.

Objectives

  • Test the SLM process at 400W or greater, with a view to substantially increasing the productivity of the process.
  • Generate procedures around a 'skin and core' approach.
  • Evaluate the difference between the surface finish achievable using 200W and higher laser powers.
  • Determine the highest deposition rate achievable using higher laser powers.
  • Produce a demonstration component to show the benefits of higher productivity SLM.

Project Management
Project Leader: Roger Fairclough
Duration: 3 years
Indicative Expenditure: £145k

Technical and Economic Benefits

  • The higher productivity SLM developed within this project will allow a wider range of member companies to access ALM for their products.
  • Additive layered manufacture is a near 100% material utilisation technique that allows complex parts, with re-entrant features, to be created without tooling allowing a true design for function, CAD to part approach. Parts can be designed for performance, repair, recycling, and material usage minimisation, rather than just for manufacture.

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Additive manufacture by friction welding (0904-4)

Purchase prices and machining costs for high performance materials can be high, especially for titanium and nickel alloys for example. Delivery lead times can also be restrictive, particularly for thicker section forms and/or large volume requirements. For other materials, such as high strength aluminium and high performance steels for example, machining costs may be more modest, but purchase costs can still be relatively high.

Friction welding techniques (including rotary friction welding, linear friction welding, and friction stir welding) offer the potential for solid-phase additive manufacture to build up near net shape parts, by the successive welding of relatively simple shapes. This approach can dramatically reduce the volume of raw material used and the extent of machining required and the overall amount of energy consumed in part production.

Additive manufacture of high performance materials in order to reduce machining effort can result in significant cost savings, time savings, new design options, and environmental benefits. The use of friction welding methods for additive manufacture potentially allows the approach to be applied with no/minimal penalty to part performance, and at an economically attractive rate based on high productivity machine-tool technology.

Objectives

  • Establish the current status of additive manufacture as applied to high value components, including consideration of the range of possible materials and technologies, including friction welding processes.
  • Identify a number of representative parts suitable for additive manufacture by friction welding, and to produce a series of technology demonstrator components of relevance to a number of industry sectors.
  • Evaluate the weld structures and properties generated in the demonstration components, and to estimate the possible cost and time savings that can be achieved by the friction additive manufacturing approach.

Project Management
Duration: 3 years
Indicative Expenditure: £180k

Technical and Economic Benefits

  • Improved understanding and awareness of the capabilities and applications of friction welding for the additive manufacture of components.
  • Improved effectiveness and wider application of additive manufacture by friction technologies, leading to reduced material usage, and associated time/cost savings and environmental benefits.
  • Potential for novel component design and improved component performance via development and optimisation of friction welding techniques.

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Detailed analysis of Vitolane fabrication methods to enable the development of novel Anti-Icing Coatings (0905-6)

The surface integrity of composite aerofoils is critical to effective performance. Soiling, such as ice accretion, has the effect of reducing performance, durability and potentially affecting structural safety. This issue is a significant problem in both the aerospace and power generation sectors. These effects stem from the loss of aerodynamic efficiency and increased drag, increased weight and loss of balance of moving components.

Removal of ice in aerospace applications is typically via active methods such as mechanical /electromechanical systems which expand or flex to fracture any ice deposits, or heating methods via re-routine heated air or by electrical resistance heating. These approaches all add complexity and cost to the manufacture and maintenance of the aerofoil.

Vitolane technology can potentially be used to address this need, but would significantly benefit from detailed analytical characterisation of the polyorganosilsesquioxanes resins that are produced.

This analysis would enable TWI to optimise the fabrication process would also improve the detailed understanding of mechanisms by which the silsesquioxanes are formed and will lead to reduced fabrication costs, leading to a greater commercial viability of this TWI innovation. This underpinning research will also assist in the development of next generation coatings, with one example being antifouling coatings for turbine blades.

Objectives

  • Identify the detailed structural (molecular) characteristics of the resin produced during a standard Vitolane fabrication routine (methacrylate functional)
  • Identify key characteristics which can be followed during the fabrication process
  • Identify differences in the structural characteristics between a standard and non-standard fabrication
  • Incorporate Vitolane resins into commercial composite blade coatings such as Crystic Gelcoat 252PA to improve anti-icing capabilities

Project Management
Project Leader: Alan Taylor
Duration: 3 years
Expenditure: £40k - year one; £30k - year two; £30k - year three

Technical and Economic Benefits

  • Reduction in production and quality control costs of Vitolane resins
  • Assistance for a current TWI innovation (Vitolane)
  • Assistance in the development of new TWI innovations specific
  • Provides characterisation data for Vitolane resins to aid anti-counterfeiting measures
  • Reduced downtime for composite blade wind turbines
  • Improved efficiency for wind turbines

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EWI/TWI Seminar on Joining Aerospace Materials

This biennial event, organized by EWI and TWI, regularly welcomes the attendance of leading technologists and engineers involved in state-of-the-art aerospace manufacturing and assembly of aircraft structures. This year's event will be sponsored by and hosted at GE Aviation in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.

Topics will focus on improved or recently developed technologies for welding and joining for a variety of materials (aluminium, titanium, nickel-based alloys, composites). Manufacturing and repair needs will also be addressed.

Who Should Attend: This program will build on the strength of past events and features information relevant to engineers involved is design, technical specification, manufacturing, quality, and those responsible for introducing new technology.

Registration information will be available in the Spring of 2010 on the EWI website.

Call for papers: Those wishing to send technical papers for consideration should submit the title and 300 word abstract for review. Please include full personal contact information. Submit to Brad Hudson, EWI Events Coordinator, bhudson@ewi.org (614.688.5146). Deadline for submission is March 1, 2010.

To view or download a printable PDF brochure, click here.

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Steel and aluminium production...halving carbon emissions by 2050?

Approaches for cutting carbon emissions, and the emerging business opportunities, will be thrust under the spotlight at Great Abington later this year when TWI hosts a one-day conference on the subject.

The event follows the recent award by the UK government of a £1.5 million 'Leadership fellowship' to Dr Julian Allwood to lead an emissions related project. Known as Well Met 2050 the five year long project's central theme will be to explore a full range of options for reducing the impact on the climate of steel and aluminium production and usage.

A groundswell of interest in just how carbon emissions can be reduced has become a hot topic for many TWI Industrial Members of late. So TWI is now working with the University of Cambridge and a number of major industrial partners to explore the relevant issues.

Scheduled for 29 September 2009 the one-day conference is designed to communicate a range of options that can be pursued. There will be time to discuss the key issues and identify the potential business opportunities that will arise. The underlying issues are indeed important ones. Climate change scientists believe that it is necessary to make a cut of at least 50% in global carbon emissions by 2050 to contain global warming. The UK government actually hopes to achieve an 80% cut.

Roughly two thirds of man-made carbon emissions arise from the use of energy, and it is estimated that steel and aluminium are responsible for 10% of these. Until the credit crunch last year, global demand for these two metals was growing at around 6% per year, with demand forecast to double by 2050.

The primary producers for both metals are focusing on widespread adoption of carbon capture and storage, or CCS as it is dubbed, as the key solution to allow demand to grow without limit.

The EU ULCOS consortium proposes that for steel, smelting reduction will allow easy separation of CO2 from other flue gases, which can be captured, compressed and cooled into liquid form, then transported to geologically suitable sites for permanent underground storage.

Energy requirements for aluminium production are largely in the form of electricity, so provision of 'carbon-free' electricity, from CCS or nuclear power, also apparently allows unlimited growth.

But the dream of CCS as the ideal solution to respond to concern about climate change is not based on certainty. CCS is itself energy intensive. The first CCS pilot scale power plant opened in September 2008. It is uncertain if there is enough storage capacity, and the risks are unknown.

An alternative response to global warming is to seek radical reductions in the demand for energy. Conventional recycling of steel and aluminium is clearly beneficial in energy saving, cutting energy requirements by about half for steel and to a tenth for aluminium.

To be kept informed of details for the conference at TWI on 29 September, please contact chris.peters@twi.co.uk.

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Non destructive testing on vital vessels puts RNLI's mind at rest

Lifeboats of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) operate in some of the most demanding sea conditions imaginable. The RNLI designs and tests its lifeboats accordingly. However it is not surprising that, on occasion, the vessels suffer damage as a result of operating in these conditions. The RNLI consulted TWI when a very heavy slamming impact caused damage to the structure of one of the charity's Tamar class lifeboats.

The RNLI planned to make use of non-destructive testing techniques to assess the damaged area, both before and after repairs. They particularly wanted to evaluate alternative methods to provide additional information on the condition of the solid glass fibre reinforced epoxy hull.

With TWI's assistance, pulsed thermography was used. While some of the hull stiffening had disbonded from the hull and suffered damage due to high local deflections, the non destructive examination proved that no damage had been caused to the hull itself and therefore limited the amount of material that had to be removed. The damaged stiffening was subsequently repaired and the lifeboat returned to service.

Results provided useful information and demonstrated to the RNLI the benefits of using pulsed thermography techniques.

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An Introduction to Friction Stir Welding

Friction Stir Welding

The course will be an intensive mixture of classroom lectures, tutorials and practical demonstrations using both video footage and live demonstrations on TWI's equipment. There will be opportunities for individual discussions with TWI engineers.

Among the topics to be discussed will be history of the process, licensing, patents and standards, process fundamentals, process advantages and disadvantages, process control, comparison with other processes, machine technology, tool technology, materials and weld performance issues, quality control, economic benefits, current/planned applications.

Attending the course will give students the necessary knowledge to make balanced decisions about the process and to deal with confidence with suppliers of equipment or friction stir welding process providers/users.

The date for the next FSW training course at Sheffield will be 20-22 October 2009.

See more information about the course.


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Structural Integrity in Japan and China

Successful Seminars on Structural Integrity in Japan and China

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Assessment of Bobbin Friction Stir Welding for the Joining of Aluminium Alloys

The friction stir welding (FSW) process was invented by TWI and was originally developed for industrial exploitation via a TWI Group Sponsored Project (GSP), the Sponsors of which were amongst the first to benefit from the new technology. TWI has recently developed a novel enhancement to the FSW process, which offers the potential to produce improved full penetration welding performance using significantly simplified, and therefore cheaper, equipment. The enhanced process can be implemented in two varieties named fixed and floating bobbin FSW. Bobbin friction stir welding has the potential to be a valuable high productivity manufacturing technique for structures of interest to the transport industries, offering high quality, highly repeatable welds at a competitive cost. It is proposed to develop, evaluate, and demonstrate the capabilities and benefits of bobbin FSW via a new GSP. Participants in the GSP will be ideally placed to become early adopters of the new technique and to benefit from the enhanced capabilities that it offers.

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Composites research fuels innovative application

Composites sandwich panels are gaining popularity in industry for a number of reasons, such as good mechanical strength, electrical insulation properties, resistance to corrosion and ease of use. Now there is an additional requirement to add value, as most industry sectors are looking for ways to improve their products by incorporating additional functionality.

TWI has now developed a mechanism (patent applied for) which enables composite sandwich panels to be formed with integral fuel cells thus providing power to structures containing them.

This approach removes many of the drawbacks associated with current methods of combining polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) with laminate or sandwich structures, such as excluding the requirement for complex housing design.

Integrating the PEMFC into a sandwich structure helps prevent the damage or loss of fuel cell functionality when assembling the stack and enables the construction of complex field flow plates to achieve good gas transfer to the electrodes by specific machined channels in the composite laminate.

The initial feasibility study has shown that a very simple single device embedded into a composite can provide power similar to an AA 1.5 volt battery.

TWI has a long history of innovation in joining technology in both the fuel cell and composites fields and is now in need of partners to take this to market.

For more information and to register your interest, please contact Paul Burling. paul.burling@twi.co.uk

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