Services for the aerospace industry
Expertise at your service
TWI can provide your company with skills and know-how from a comprehensive range of specialised technical resources.
Process development - vital to the aerospace sector if existing and new materials are to be used to their full potential. Progress has been directed towards joining technologies for high specific strength materials, Al-Si alloys, titanium, intermetallics; to difficult-to-join materials, nickel superalloys and ceramic materials; and to the relatively new composites (thermosets and thermoplastics). Attention is now going towards new and improved procedures to reduce cost, reduce weight and reduce or eliminate distortion.
Coatings - the extremes of environment within engines or certain airframe or component parts require thermal and/or erosion resistance. HVOF coatings have been developed with this in mind including ceramics, cermets and functionally graded or composite coatings.
Performance prediction - reliability and maintainability are key issues as the aerospace business moves towards new means of supporting the commercial airline or defence markets. The performance of welded structures, particularly under fatigue loading, is a strength of TWI and an area where TWI can support design and performance improvement and prediction. This will increasingly rely on finite element models to cover process selection and optimisation, design, and joint and structure performance.
Repair - the ability to get more life out of existing aircraft is desired by airline companies, and the armed forces require quick and easy-to-apply repair methodologies. TWI's armoury of joining and coating processes offers opportunities to extend life, coupled with performance evaluation to support maintenance regimes and life predictions.
Aerospace Industry Panel
TWI has set up a dedicated industry sector panel to serve the needs of the aerospace industry. This panel enables industrial member companies and TWI to discuss current and future requirements for the industry. Subjects covered in this open forum have included:
- trends in the aerospace manufacturing industries
- the substance and conduct of TWI's Core R & D Programme
- collaborative projects
- training needs
- special needs in the areas of standards, quality control and safety
- requirements for equipment, materials, design and fabrication methods
To ensure an unbiased approach at the forefront of technology, the Panel contains a representative cross-section of the industry:
- Airframe manufacturers
- Aeroengine manufacturers
- Component manufacturers
- Primary material suppliers
Consultancy and project support
TWI'S experts work with industry, applying their unique knowhow from concept to completion. A multidisciplinary approach at TWI means that teams covering a wide range of skills can be brought together to solve problems arising at any stage within a product's life cycle. TWI helps the aerospace industry with:
- Materials selection and performance
- Joining processes
- Coatings
- Design, safety and reliability
- Inspection
- Flaw assessment
- Repair
- Failure analysis
- Stress analysis
- Mechanical testing
- Engineering software
- Quality assurance
- Health & safety
- Process modelling
Technology projects for aerospace
TWI provides support and guidance for the implementation of joining and manufacturing processes. Some of the R & D projects carried out by TWI for the aerospace industry include:
- Analysis of dynamic failures in carbon fibre-reinforced composites, invaluable when assessing the wide variety of composite systems in use and developing new designs
- Fatigue testing of thin sheet aluminium TIG welds to produce design for the manufacture of more efficient structures.
- Linear friction welding for joining blades to discs
- Development of prototype welding equipment for thermoplastic composite aircraft structures
- Establishment of welding procedures for
-titanium aluminides - Shaped metal deposition using a range of welding processes
Projects at the leading edge
Recent work at TWI for the aerospace sector covers:
- Sophisticated electron beam deflection system to modify thermal profile during welding and enable 'difficult-to-weld' alloys to be manufactured
- New friction processing methods for 'difficult-to-weld' nickel based alloys
- Laser cutting and welding of complex shaped components
- Model to predict the distortion of welded structures
- High productivity welding of Ti using advanced arc welding processes
- Friction stir welding process improvements and joint performance determination, in Al alloys and development of stationary shoulder technique for friction stir welding of Ti alloys
- Defect assessment for more accurate prediction of life expectancy
- Development of NDT facilities for advanced materials to give greater confidence in their use and better in-service inspection, including the verification of techniques through the NDT Validation Centre at the TWI's Wales Technology Centre in Port Talbot
- Thermal barrier protection systems - incorporation of a ceramic liner against the nickel alloy used in combustion chambers, thus increasing working temperatures to 1400 deg C.
- Specialised NDT techniques for adhesively bonded metallic joints. Detection of surface, plate and interface waves will show defects which computer software can interpret numerically or visually.
Back-up resources
Member companies have access to the total range of resources at TWI. Extensive laboratory facilities with a wide variety of advanced equipment and specialised test facilities are available, these include:
- Finite element analysis
- Fatigue and corrosion fatigue
- Fracture testing
- Material and chemical analysis
- NDT
- Impact testing
- High temperature tests
The next step
For further information contact the Aerospace Industry Team (aerospace@twi.co.uk) at TWI for any of the services outlined on these pages, or if your company needs any help with an aerospace problem.