Automated-Composite-Repair-Farnborough-Air-Show-2012.pdf

Confidential 1 Automated Composite Repair Preparation John Cornforth 2 Customer Base Market Business Mix Sector Market Customers Product Strategy Current Product Portfolio Engine Rotatives Transparencies Coatings Fuselage Sections Engine Structures Nacelle Pylon Flying Surfaces Protection Systems 4 Technology – Targeted Innovation Future Wing Technologies Engine Structures Engine Rotatives Transparencies Coatings Ice Protection Systems Advanced Fuselage Nacelle Pylon Future Product Differentiation Advanced Process Development Advanced Metallic Processes Next Generation Composite Processes 5 6 HondaJet Fuselage 787 Fuselage Section A400M Wing Growth in Composite Airframe Environmental efficiency has fuelled the growth in the use of composites, e.g. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has an all-composite fuselage GKN Aerospace is currently manufacturing the HondaJet CFRP fuselage Airbus A400M wing structures are predominantly composite material Increasingly, parts are manufactured from CFRP, allowing larger integration of complex structures. This in turn leads to higher value components, hence the need to be able to repair rather than replace 7 In Production In Service How Damage Occurs Damage can occur: In production In service Inclusion Porosity Bond integrity Non-conforming parts Assembly damage Impact damage Lightning strike Erosion Temperature damage Maintenance damage Chemical damage Fatigue Water ingress The safety requirements on aircraft structures are highly demanding The quality requirements on parts are correspondingly stringent No matter how carefully parts are manufactured, assembled into an aircraft and operated by an end user, damage will occur Repair processes are therefore an essential consideration in the original design 8 Designing for Repair Repair preparations to laminated composite structures are particularly time consuming and require the co