The U.S. Economic Development Association has awarded a grant of $2 million to Wichita State University to develop and demonstrate advanced composite material manufacturing technology.
The grant is secured by WSU Strategic Initiatives and will provide funding for essential equipment needed for the Advanced Technology Laboratory for Aerospace Systems (ATLAS) within WSU’s National Institute for Aviation Research. ATLAS investigates the development of manufacturing protocols for automated tape laying (ATL) and automated fiber placement (AFP) for aircraft systems.
As per the news, the grant will provide funding for the purchase of a tape slitter; vacuum table; autoclave with wireless sensors, rheometer, nitrogen generator and a heated platen press, which will be used in the development of manufacturing protocols for automated fiber placement processes for thermoplastic aircraft primary structures.
Currently, the automated fiber placement processes is interrupted by labour-intensive non-destructive inspection for quality assurance. The proposed project will develop and demonstrate incorporation of real-time inspections with automated fiber placement processes and machine learning algorithms.
The ATLAS researchers have developed in-process inspection system that will learn to automatically identify manufacturing defects that are quite common during AFP/ATL, such as gaps, overlaps, twisted tows, missing tows, puckers, and foreign object defects and feed digital information into machine learning algorithms to take corrective actions on subsequent manufacturing runs to improve part quality. This fits well into the Digital Factory of the Future concept and will be helpful in increasing the production rates of commercial and defense aircraft.
The vice-resident for research and technology transfer at WSU, John Tomblin, said, “In the current environment, there are increasing pressures facing the aerospace and defense industries to innovate with flat budgets, record-setting production rates, increasing complex programs and an evolving workforce.” He further added, “Investment in emerging advanced manufacturing technologies are critical to maintain economic growth in our region. We want to thank the EDA for acknowledging the importance of the advanced manufacturing sector in South Central Kansas with this investment.”
The lab will be led by Waruna Seneviratne, NIAR senior research scientist.
Seneviratne said, “ATLAS provides a neutral ground for manufacturers to research advanced manufacturing concepts with various machine, software and processing options. It will also educate and train student Factory of the Future engineers on advanced manufacturing concepts.”
The location of ATLAS will be the NIAR headquarters building on the campus of Wichita State. The manufacturing development facilities will be on the first floor while computer-aided simulations and analysis will be on the third floor.
ATLAS has got many strategic partnerships with aircraft manufacturers, material suppliers, other universities, equipment suppliers, and government agencies. Apart from the EDA, significant funding for ATLAS has poured in from State of Kansas and Office of Naval Research for acquiring inspection systems, test systems, and advanced AFP equipment.
Stratview Research states that this initiative has come well in time when the aerospace industry has a dire need of improvement in part manufacturing rate. Advanced manufacturing processes such as AFP & ATL are playing significant role in fulfilling the industry needs. It is estimated that the global aircraft AFP/ATL composites market will exceed US$ 4.0 billion mark in 2024.
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Source: WSU
