Time to raise our ambitions

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According to Mark Summers, Aerospace Technology Institute’s (ATI) head of technology (manufacturing, materials, & structures), the industry provides a significant opportunity for growth, but challenges must be addressed to realise its ambitions.

According to Mark Summers, Aerospace Technology Institute’s (ATI) head of technology (manufacturing, materials, & structures), the industry provides a significant opportunity for growth, but challenges must be addressed to realise its ambitions.

Since the ATI published its Raising Ambition technology strategy in 2016, it has continued to identify the exploitation opportunities of composites and additive manufacturing, supporting the development of related technologies through the targeted investment of the ATI portfolio and facilitating collaboration within the aerospace community.

Civil aerospace has consistently increased the use of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) on aircraft programmes over the last four decades to the point that it is now the norm for aircraft to have more than 50% material usage (by weight) across airframe, propulsion and systems elements combined. The ATI forecasts the total value of aircraft deliveries between 2016-2035 to exceed $6.3 trillion (as stated in Raising Ambition).

Within this predicted market growth, CFRP usage will substantially increase over the next decade due to new aircraft sales, wider adoption of the material in incremental development programmes, and new platform entrants. The opportunities for material formulation and manufacture, equipment suppliers and component manufacturers, are rapidly evolving. This could enable new and enhanced end-to-end value chains to be established locally and internationally, linked to productivity and the logistics needs of end users.

Industry has recognised the need to evolve a different approach to the use of CFRP in aircraft design and manufacture. Traditional design techniques have led to the development of components that are not topologically optimised, often constrained by the processes and methodologies that have been practiced for decades in metallic products. Future high design, verification and validation, and routes to certification need to consider the performance characteristics of CFRP 2D and 3D materials that will impact whole aircraft fuel efficiency, cost, environment and operational needs. The levels of safety enabled through high-fidelity material science need to be retained, but reimagined for CFRP applications. The expense of CFRP raw materials, processing and manufacturing often restrict widespread adoption as traditional metallic materials are more cost effective. Manufacturers are seeking to reduce production costs by reducing complex infrastructure and high-energy processing needs (e.g. autoclaves) through the development of new materials.

Technology innovations are being addressed through funded research programmes, but require significant multinational, collaborative effort.

The ATI portfolio has many composite projects focused on innovation in design, validation and verification, and manufacturing technologies. These technologies closely align with the UK Government’s industrial strategy, enabling significant exploitation opportunities, delivering economic benefit, and high-value manufacturing jobs. The ATI will be publishing a composite roadmap, in partnership with the Composite Leadership Forum, during the summer this year. The study will focus on technology solutions for fibres and matrix, intermediates, part production, integration and assembly, equipment producers and recycling. The ATI has consulted with more than 50 key industrial and academic stakeholders to understand CFRP opportunities over the coming years.

Several themes have emerged from this engagement: Design and Analysis - strong linkages to the fourth industrial revolution are becoming common; Manufacturing Processes - innovative technologies are required to realise the additional potential that CFRP could provide to the sector; Materials - through the enablement of new design rules, digital toolsets, and manufacturing processes, new materials can be realised that do not conform with the current widely available commercial products; Enablers - factory automation will be one of the key differentiators for industry.

The future for CFRP within aerospace will ensure disruptive architectures, manufacturing efficiencies and through-life engineering benefits are delivered.

CFRP will increasingly be used for aerospace components. The UK aerospace sector is competitively placed to do this because of its design and manufacturing capabilities, and through the development of material innovations. By doing this the UK will respond and adapt to the needs of new and emerging aircraft market segments.

Over the coming year, the Institute will research and consult with the sector on the future needs and challenges of composites and additive manufacturing for current and future aircraft developments, and we will be sharing the outcomes from this in the form of an INSIGHT paper this summer.

www.ati.org.uk

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