Innovative Manufacturing: Highlighting Technology Bricks for Automated Production of Fiber-Reinforced Composites in Helicopter Structures

Kurzfassung

The increasing demand for lightweight, high-performance materials in aerospace applications has driven a heightened focus on the automated manufacturing of fiber-reinforced composite structures. However, current manufacturing processes - often labor-intensive and requiring extensive manual intervention - pose significant challenges in terms of cost, quality consistency and scalability. The integration of advanced single part manufacturing processes and joining technologies holds great potential to overcome these barriers. As part of the NEUTRON joint project, relevant technology bricks for the manufacture and assembly of a generic helicopter engine deck structure were investigated in varying degrees of detail. To date, state of the art helicopter engine decks with conventional architecture have not allowed the use of fiber composite structures for reasons of fire resistance. An innovative, functional-differential approach developed by Airbus Helicopters [1, 2] makes it possible to manufacture the engine deck structure from carbon fiber-reinforced plastics and enables the maturation and demonstration of the developed technology bricks.