Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - OLFITT (O.M.P.M LiferCraft Fabrication Innovative Tool Tail)

Teaser

The aim of this proposal is to develop, design, manufacture and deliver to the Core Partner of the Call For Core Partner AIR-02-02, the prototype manufacturing tooling to fabricate all composite parts of the LifeRCraft Rotorless Tail that belong to the WP_B4.1 Rotorless Tail...

Summary

The aim of this proposal is to develop, design, manufacture and deliver to the Core Partner of the Call For Core Partner AIR-02-02, the prototype manufacturing tooling to fabricate all composite parts of the LifeRCraft Rotorless Tail that belong to the WP_B4.1 Rotorless Tail for LifeRCraft i.e.:
• Tail Boom
• Horizontal Stabilizer (except injection tooling for RTM Inner structure)
• Vertical stabilizer
• Control Surfaces
• Fairings

According to the call, composite parts could be fabricated using a variety of materials and process to be defined before activities start. In terms of cost, schedule reduced fabrication flow, reduced environmental impact, the proposal outlines different tooling approach in relation with the different process outlined in the call. These include prepreg and out of autoclave technology for which, taking in account preliminary shape and dimension of part, main tooling issues like materials, configuration, thermal behavior etc. are evacuate on the basis of proponent know how. In particular the use of RUPS (Recovered Uncured Prepreg Scraps) developed by proponent is suggested as a valid opportunity to reduce materials cost still holding advantages of composite tools in terms of reduced flow and energy consumption.
Manufacturing tool approach must be selected in close agreement with core partner responsible of composite tail fabrication having in mind the need of a light tool chain as suitable for prototypic fabrication.

In WP1 after an harmonization phase, for each tool chain (i.e. Tail Boom, HS, VS, Control surface, and Fairings) tool design, tool fabrication and tool check and report will be performed.
Due to very tight schedule these activities will be performed mostly in parallel releasing the information’s necessary to following steps as soon as they are available in a full concurrent engineering logic.
The WP2 will be devoted mostly to completion of reports and tool documentation to include results of tool try out that partner will support.
WP3 will concern the supporting activities during tools utilization for part fabrication considering the routine maintenance and tuning activities. .
WP4 will handle all the management, communication and dissemination activities.

Work performed

The project achieved interesting results in the first year, in terms of technical solutions studied and agreed with the Outcome:

- Preliminary tool specification (2 releases) issued by OUTCOME received by OMPM
- Preliminary solid model of parts issued by OUTCOME (3 releases) and received from OMPM
- Tool list generated and updated by OMPM, revised with OUTCOME
- Detailed schedule for tool design, fabrication and delivery prepared and shared with OUTCOME
- Family of tools defined by OMPM: include 5 macro-families
- Lay out of at least one representative tools for each family completed including observation and recommendations of OUTCOME
- Tool design could start for Outer Mould Line cure tool family i.e: Boom, VS and HS skins
- RTM Maturity:
- PDR completion, held on 15-16th May 2018
- RTM pilot tool won’t be produced. The main reason is due to big effort both in financial and time limits for its realization.
- All tools for manufacturing single parts of Horizontal Stabilizer will be developed, manufactured and delivered by OMPM to OUTCOME, with the only exception of the Injection tooling for HS Inner Structure in RTM
- Leading Edge tools (3) from RTM to Prepreg;
- Small curing tools are moved from steel to aluminium;
- In accordance with the Technical Specification requirements, tolerances for the special case of curing tool thickness must be ±2 mm. In order to this requirement, AHE is willing to purchase the required quality. According to AHE, a qualified provider has been selected to satisfy this quality requirement for the major critical parts.
- Mitigation meetings (in Marignane on July 5th 2018, in Bruxelles on July 24th 2018) have been held to conciliate technical and financial deviations and to avoid the risk of failing the project;
- A letter of agreement between TM and OMPM was prepared and was signed at the beginning of September. Next, it has been defined an Amendment to update the Grant Agreement with JU.
- In the letter of Agreement, OMPM has provided its availability to give in loan one laser projector avoiding to manufacture the honeycomb and plies positioning templates
- On the 12th of November 2018, a meeting was held in OMPM facilities with the attendance of AHE and TM in order to define an accurate schedule for parts fabrication and delivery;
- From the point of view of management, all the participants gave their availability for a weekly meeting (WebEx) in order to assure a smooth starting of activities and a proper monitoring of the project progress;
- CDR completion, held on 7-8th May 2019.

Final results

Taking into account the current state of the art the beneficiary confirm that results expected at the end of the project will be achieved.
From the point of view of the expected impact, it can be pointed out that the preliminary selection of tool configuration performed in agreement with Topic Manager do not include the use of composite tools and use of recovered Prepreg scraps as planned in the original proposal. This was due to technical and schedule reason.
Any way the goal of reducing energy consumption and environmental impact has been maintained on all the tool lay out configuration. In fact tool mass and usage of raw material (aluminium or steel ) has been reduced to minimum. In this way energy consumption to produce raw material and tools usage will be reduced.
Particular care has been devoted to thermal design of RTM tool that require a significant amount of energy for heat up the tool. Therefore the tool layout has been developed carefully balancing the needs of tool structural strength (necessary to hold injection pressure) with the needs of mass reduction to reduce energy consumption.
Energy saving in comparison with conventional tool approach is under evaluation.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.ompm.it.