MORE COMPOSITES LESS ALUMINIUM: A CHALLENGE FOR METALCUTTERS?

Composites are coming

With the increasing use of composites in large civil aircraft, is composite parts production creeping up
on unsuspecting metal machinists? Andrew Allcock investigates

“C ompared with aluminium,

composites should offer like-for-like
weight savings of up to 10 per cent,there
is no fatigue problem,so a design life of
20,000 hours could become 100,000
hours,and maintenance requirements
should be lower.Those are the three main
drivers,” says GKN Aerospace Services’
technical director,Phil Grainger,for the
uptake of carbon fibre reinforced plastics
(CFRP) in civil aircraft – and of which
thermosets are the most prevalent type.
But he adds that additional benefits are
that they can be moulded into complex
shapes,have a higher specific strength
than aluminium,have a good surface –
aerodynamically speaking,and can be
swapped for existing aluminium
components.
their aluminium counterparts.
Fortron PPS is,according to Ticona’s
technical account manager,Peter
Celanese AG’s technical polymer Radden,the only thermoplastic certified
operation,Ticona, says composites have for use in civil aircraft high-performance
assembly benefits. So in the A320,for applications. First used on the A340-500
example,“only 96 individual parts have to and -600 models,its use is growing with
be joined together instead of the 2072 the A380 using 5 to 10 tonnes versus the
parts in an analogous aluminium A340’s one tonne,says Mr Radden. So,the
construction”.And only two construction A380’S entire fixed wing leading edge (J-
elements made of its high-performance
thermoplastic CFRP Fortron PPS are
needed for a 5.5 m long wing section for
the A340 – instead of the original five
aluminium components.These plastic
parts are also 20 per cent lighter than

Major monolithic CFRP and thermoplastics application

Vertical tail plane Tail cone
Wing CFPR, ATL for torsion Solid laminated
Glass box and rudders CFRP, AFP
thermoplastic
J-nose Upper deck Horizontal tail plane
Outer flaps floor beams CFRP, AFP for torsion
CFPR, ATL CFPR, pultrusion box and elevators
Wing ribs
CFRP, ATL

Un-pressurised fuselage
Solid laminated CFRP, AFP

Engine cowlings
CFRP, AFP

Centre wing box Landing gear doors Flap track Rear pressure bulkhead
CFRP, ATL Solid laminated CFRP panels CFRP, RFI
Source: Airbus
CFRP, RTM non-crimped fabrics
AFP Automated fibre placement RFI Resin film infusion
ATL Automated tape laying RTM Resin transfer moulding
CFRP Carbon fibre reinforced plastic PULTRUSION Continues CFRP pulled through a die

MACHINERY 20 February 2004 ● www.machinery.co.uk

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nose) – 30 m-plus – will be manufactured
from thermoplastics,which have good
impact resistance, are impervious to
chemical degradation,while parts can be
easily joined by welding.
Overall though,the A380 will be 20
per cent by weight composite (all types),
but future aircraft generations could be
up to 60 per cent composite,says Ticona.
COMPOSITE ‘FIRSTS’
The A380,scheduled to enter service in
2006,will be the first large civil aircraft
with a carbon fibre central wingbox – a
weight saving of up to 1 1/2 tonnes (inset
picture,page 13).A monolithic (single-
piece) CFRP design has also been
adopted for the fin box and rudder,for the
horizontal stabiliser and elevators,upper
DebutArt: Peter Crowther
deck floor beams,and rear pressure
bulkhead (see diagram,below,left).
Boeing’s 7E7,due to enter service in
2008, will be the first commercial jet ever
to have a majority of the primary
structure – including the wing and
www.machinery.co.uk ● MACHINERY 20 February 2004
fuselage – made of composite materials.
According to Heraldnet last
December (www.heraldnet.com)
headquartered in Everett,Washington,
close to Boeing’s large plant),composites
will change the way Boeing builds
planes,and impact its suppliers. Boeing
will build about 37 per cent of the new
plane in-house.The rest – including,for
the first time,the wings – will come from
suppliers.And the entire fuselage
cylinder,excluding the nose and rear,will
be a single composite structure.
Instead of a 3,000,000 parts,there’ll be
fewer than 10,000. Instead of 5000
assembly workers for a 747,there’ll be 800
for the 7E7.And a three-week build
period will become three days.
Also driving composite uptake is the
Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project (see
Machinery,16 January,page 10) of which
some 2450 are to be built for the US and
UK,with export sales possibly doubling
that. Some 40 per cent of its structure is
composite materials.
COVER STORY
Quite clearly,the ‘primes’like Airbus
and Boeing are changing the way they
put aircraft together.And these large
composite parts require automated
machinery to lay up the CFRP material
onto the formers,moulds or over
honeycomb fillers,while larger
autoclaves (pressurised ovens) are
required to cure the parts,in the case of
thermosets.The use of composites will
also affect suppliers by reducing the
amount of aluminium work and
increasing the amount of composite
work. So Machinery went looking for signs
of these impacts.
Cincinnati Lamb is a world leader in
the manufacture of fibre placement (tow
placement) and tape laying machinery
(www.cinmach.com – tape laying
machine,picture below).
Chip Storie,Cincinnati Lamb vice
president aerospace sales,says that the
trend is for the composite parts to
become larger. It is currently developing
a Viper 6000 fibre placement machine –
the company had to “stretch”its Viper
3000 to support Airbus,Spain’s
manufacture of the A380’s rear fuselage –
the largest CRFP rear fuselage ever
produced (see picture,page 12/13).
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 Not only larger,but faster machines
are needed. Manual lay-up of composite
tapes/tows is in the order of 1-2 lbs/hour.
Current machines can lay around 15-20
lbs/hour. Cincinnati is aiming to up
speed,but Mr Storie will not be drawn on
a target figure,only offering that it is
“critical to dramatically increase speed”
for the 7E7 project.
GKN Aerospace Services’Mr Grainger
emphasises the need to increase speed if
companies in the West are to compete
with lower labour cost countries. GKN
makes the CFRP trailing edges for the
A380 and has recently developed large
composite winglets for the European
AWIATOR research project
(www.awiator.net).The company has
machines for laying up composites “but
not at the performance level required”,
admits Mr Grainger.
But for the A380 parts,he says that the
company (www.gknplc.com) invented a
new process that reduced the
manufacturing cost significantly. Having
done that,the company is about to
embark upon a research programme –
with hoped for Government support –
that has speeding up tape laying as one of
its targets. Mr Grainger suggests that a
figure of 40 lbs/hour may be achievable.
Crucially,automated tape/tow laying
is not destined to remain only a ‘prime’
activity. Spanish equipment maker
MTorres (www.mtorres.es) says it has
already supplied such machinery to tier 1
suppliers,and Cincinnati Lamb’s Mr
Storie,says that some entrepreneurial job
shops are beginning to look at the
process.“The equipment costs are
coming down and are now in a range that
progressive job shops are used to paying
for their metalcutting machines. It’s not
the capital investment,it’s knowledge of
the technology and experience that they
don’t have,” he offers.
But primes must first decide to put
this work outside.“That’s a bridge that
OEMs have yet to cross. But when rates
increase with JSF,for example,the capital
investment will be huge and at some
point the OEMs will say ‘we don’t want to
tie our capital up in this way’,” he says.
GKN agrees:“Approximately 80 per
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cent of structures production is still
carried out by the prime contractors.
There is still considerable growth
potential available to companies able to
capitalise on the outsourcing
opportunity.”
UK SPECIALIST
In the UK,Darwen,Lancashire-based
Brookhouse Patterns is a specialist in
making tools for composite lay-up,with
its associate,Brookhouse Composites,a
specialist in composite parts
manufacture. Brookhouse Composites
also makes metal parts, paints and
assembles for companies like Airbus,
while also making replacement parts for
the Canberra bomber,for example.
Using hand lay-up techniques,
investment in tape/tow lay-up machinery
is not discounted,but part volumes in
civil aerospace are not high currently,says
Brookhouse Composites’sales manager,
Terry Unsworth.
Recent investment within the two
companies has concentrated on tooling
and lay-up facilities.This has included a
large autoclave (13.2 m length) and a Above, this A380 rear fuselage is
new clean room to support greater the largest such structure yet built
volumes of lay-up,while two Correa five- in CFRP. Right, the A380’s CFRP
axis milling machines have been wing box – another first
installed to focus on tooling
manufacture. being acceptable,says GKN’s Mr Grainger.
The company does undertake a But as CFRP is used more and more for
limited amount of composite machining. structural parts – such as spars – the need
When machining composites in house, to machine to close tolerances will
strong local dust extraction is employed become more common,he says.The
to keep the dust away from machine alternative process of moulding high-
slideways,electrical cabinets and people. precision parts – Resin Transfer Moulding
For some trimming tasks the company (also undertaken by Brookhouse
puts lay-ups out for water or laser edge Composites) – is too expensive to
trimming. consider everywhere,he says.
There has been a concern in the In fact Cincinnati Lamb was
industry about delamination with water machining a CFRP spar for “a large prime
jet cutting,offers Mr Unsworth,“but while manufacturer of aircraft" in January
some concern remains,the paranoia that when Machinery called.
existed has decreased.” Brookhouse As for GKN:“Nearly all the work we
Composites may install robotic routing are bidding for has machining as part of
equipment in the future,he adds,and he it,” Mr Grainger offers.And it’s an area in
believes that laser-based machining is the which the company has made gains
future. during the AWIATOR programme,but
For panel-type parts,there is not a where it reveals little process detail.“One
high proportion of milling required,the of our excitements with this project was
as-moulded tolerances of 0.03 inches that we machined CFRP parts to
MACHINERY 20 February 2004 ● www.machinery.co.uk

Airbus - left and below
tolerances of 0.005 inches.And we also
drilled 3000 holes to such an accuracy
that every one of them lined up with its
mating part.”
He observes,though,that cutters for
machining composites are modelled on
metalcutting milling cutters “which is odd
for a material that you do not cleave to
cut.You need a grinding wheel,but
wheels clog. So we think that we need a
high-speed dust removal abrasive system,
and that is also part of our research”.
University of Rome investigations
(www.aidaa.it/2-2003/Marchetti.pdf)
indicate that he’s right.
During the AWIATOR project,Mr
Grainger says the company improved its
cutting speed performance by a factor of
five. However,the research is aiming for
25x faster. Currently the company cuts
both wet and dry,there being arguments
on both sides he offers.
www.machinery.co.uk ● MACHINERY 20 February 2004
Fundamentally,says Mr Grainger:“Over
the next three years,we have a plan to
significantly reduce the cost of carbon
fibre product made in our factories.”
AMERICANS CUT IT
The use of special abrasive cutters is
something with which General Tool
Company (GTC - www.gentool.com) of
Cincinnati,US is already acquainted.The
235-man aerospace job shop has been
machining CFRP since the mid-90s,when
it first machined the GE90 engine fan
blade root – the GE90 powers Boeing’s
777 aircraft and is the only commercial
turbofan engine using an all-composite
fan blade.
GTC is also now
involved with GKN
Aerospace Services’
Alabama operation,
undertaking CFRP
cutting. But CFRP
machining is still a small
proportion of what it
undertakes,although it is
the fastest growing
element.And the most
prevalent work now is JSF
parts machining.
Even before cutting
challenges, however,
GTC’s Greg Kramer observes that the first
problem is estimating how long a job is
going to take as there are no readily
available speeds and feeds data,while it
is not possible to discern material
properties until the part arrives – there
being no material standards and related
properties as there are with metals.
Estimating tool life is another issue.All of
which is why there are few companies
willing to take on composite machining,
says Mr Kramer.
Drilling presents fewer problems than
milling,and for 3/8 inches and smaller,says
Earl Wilkerson,the company uses
International Carbide Corporation’s
WonderDrill (www.icctool.com). For
holes larger than 3/8 inches,the company
uses a hole saw with a diamond abrasive
coating. Slots are put in the tool to allow
slurry to escape,with a pecking action
allowing its further dispersal.
COVER STORY
As for milling,for limited numbers of
parts,the company uses conventional
milling cutters,but for higher quantities,
specials are used,and this involves a
grinding approach. GTC uses 1 inch
diameter cylinders coated with 25
diamond grit.Around the cylinder are
relief slots,not flutes.“Brazing the grit has
proved better than nickel plating.There’s
more of the grit available to cut as the
bond coating is less.The tools last longer
and they don’t clog so easily as there’s
more space for the slurry,” says Mr
Wilkerson,and the company is currently
developing cutting data standards for
these tools.
Flushing is a big issue,underlines Mr
Kramer,and GTC uses water plus rust
inhibitor. But the need to change from
soluble to this water-plus-inhibitor mix is
a time-consuming exercise,he adds.
Machine tool slideway contamination is a
further problem,and a gantry-type
graphite milling machine with raised
slideways is considered a likely solution.
GTC does not see itself becoming
involved with composite lay-up at the
moment.“I think we should master
composite cutting before considering
that,” suggests Mr Kramer.
In investigating the cutting of
aerospace CFRPs,Machinery was unable
to unearth any centre of excellence in
the US,Spain or UK – none of those
spoken to could instance one. It all seems
to be inside companies and proprietary.
But it’s not an area ignored by cutting
tool makers. Indeed,two well known
cutting tool companies undertaking
research in this area did not wish to
reveal their hands at this time.
Brookhouse Composites’Mr
Unsworth does highlight that the North
West Aerospace Alliance’s
(www.aerospace.co.uk) recently
established Aerospace Innovation Centre
will have a composites focus. Indeed,AIC
and the Northern Aerospace Technology
Exploitation Centre held a meeting on 3
February at UMIST,Manchester to discuss
a regional composites initiative.
There can be no doubt that the
composites challenge is creeping up on
metalcutting companies. M
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