Spirit AeroSystems increases work at Prestwick facility

Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon visited Spirit's site in Prestwick, Ayrshire, to share details of the new single-aisle spoiler work on the Airbus A320 family programmes.

"We are pleased to utilise this innovative technology to not only bring improved quality and savings to our customer but also to secure new work for our UK facility," said Scott McLarty, vice-president and general manager of Spirit's UK and Malaysia facilities. "This is an opportunity for us to leverage our technology, design, engineering and manufacturing expertise to better support the needs of our customers, and it strengthens our ability to secure future work."

The Spirit-developed resin transfer moulding (RTM) solution supports the high-volume production of spoilers and other monolithic components and promises to deliver improved quality and significant cost savings. Spirit will establish a world-class manufacturing platform involving state-of-the-art automation and robotics to meet its customer's rate demands, which are currently at over 600 spoilers per month. The Scottish Government is providing investment support to secure the project, which will result in an increase in headcount at the facility.

The RTM design solution utilises an innovative fabrication process, enabled by material selection, that is custom designed to meet the increasingly complex geometries required for advanced composite structures. The process greatly increases design certainty and structural integrity throughout the completed component. This, in combination with a fully defined manufacturing process and industrialisation strategy, presents an alternative solution to the current composite sandwich structure. Spirit and Airbus have been collaborating on the research and development of the new technology since 2014. The Aerospace Technology Institute also provided a funding match to the effort.

The RTM solution offers non-crimp fabric skins and stiffeners while maintaining existing product interfaces. It allows for greater process control, reduced cycle time and lower energy consumption. Spirit will also utilise Spirit Exact, a suite of technologies that allow parts to become tools, for assembly of the RTM ‘closed cell’ composite box. Spirit has completed RTM technology demonstrations at its Advanced Technology Centre in Prestwick and is scheduled to begin production of the single-aisle spoilers with the new process in 2019.

www.spiritaero.com