Tag Archives: aeronautics

Taking the baking out of aircraft manufacture

It seems that ovens are an essential piece of equipment when manufacturing aircraft parts but that may change if research from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) proves successful. An April 14, 2015 news item on ScienceDaily describes the current process and the MIT research,

Composite materials used in aircraft wings and fuselages are typically manufactured in large, industrial-sized ovens: Multiple polymer layers are blasted with temperatures up to 750 degrees Fahrenheit, and solidified to form a solid, resilient material. Using this approach, considerable energy is required first to heat the oven, then the gas around it, and finally the actual composite.

Aerospace engineers at MIT have now developed a carbon nanotube (CNT) film that can heat and solidify a composite without the need for massive ovens. When connected to an electrical power source, and wrapped over a multilayer polymer composite, the heated film stimulates the polymer to solidify.

The group tested the film on a common carbon-fiber material used in aircraft components, and found that the film created a composite as strong as that manufactured in conventional ovens — while using only 1 percent of the energy.

The new “out-of-oven” approach may offer a more direct, energy-saving method for manufacturing virtually any industrial composite, says Brian L. Wardle, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.

“Typically, if you’re going to cook a fuselage for an Airbus A350 or Boeing 787, you’ve got about a four-story oven that’s tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure that you don’t need,” Wardle says. “Our technique puts the heat where it is needed, in direct contact with the part being assembled. Think of it as a self-heating pizza. … Instead of an oven, you just plug the pizza into the wall and it cooks itself.”

Wardle says the carbon nanotube film is also incredibly lightweight: After it has fused the underlying polymer layers, the film itself — a fraction of a human hair’s diameter — meshes with the composite, adding negligible weight.

An April 14, 2015 MIT news release, which originated the news item, describes the origins of the team’s latest research, the findings, and the implications,

Carbon nanotube deicers

Wardle and his colleagues have experimented with CNT films in recent years, mainly for deicing airplane wings. The team recognized that in addition to their negligible weight, carbon nanotubes heat efficiently when exposed to an electric current.

The group first developed a technique to create a film of aligned carbon nanotubes composed of tiny tubes of crystalline carbon, standing upright like trees in a forest. The researchers used a rod to roll the “forest” flat, creating a dense film of aligned carbon nanotubes.

In experiments, Wardle and his team integrated the film into airplane wings via conventional, oven-based curing methods, showing that when voltage was applied, the film generated heat, preventing ice from forming.

The deicing tests inspired a question: If the CNT film could generate heat, why not use it to make the composite itself?

How hot can you go?

In initial experiments, the researchers investigated the film’s potential to fuse two types of aerospace-grade composite typically used in aircraft wings and fuselages. Normally the material, composed of about 16 layers, is solidified, or cross-linked, in a high-temperature industrial oven.

The researchers manufactured a CNT film about the size of a Post-It note, and placed the film over a square of Cycom 5320-1. They connected electrodes to the film, then applied a current to heat both the film and the underlying polymer in the Cycom composite layers.

The team measured the energy required to solidify, or cross-link, the polymer and carbon fiber layers, finding that the CNT film used one-hundredth the electricity required for traditional oven-based methods to cure the composite. Both methods generated composites with similar properties, such as cross-linking density.

Wardle says the results pushed the group to test the CNT film further: As different composites require different temperatures in order to fuse, the researchers looked to see whether the CNT film could, quite literally, take the heat.

“At some point, heaters fry out,” Wardle says. “They oxidize, or have different ways in which they fail. What we wanted to see was how hot could this material go.”

To do this, the group tested the film’s ability to generate higher and higher temperatures, and found it topped out at over 1,000 F. In comparison, some of the highest-temperature aerospace polymers require temperatures up to 750 F in order to solidify.

“We can process at those temperatures, which means there’s no composite we can’t process,” Wardle says. “This really opens up all polymeric materials to this technology.”

The team is working with industrial partners to find ways to scale up the technology to manufacture composites large enough to make airplane fuselages and wings.

“There needs to be some thought given to electroding, and how you’re going to actually make the electrical contact efficiently over very large areas,” Wardle says. “You’d need much less power than you are currently putting into your oven. I don’t think it’s a challenge, but it has to be done.”

Gregory Odegard, a professor of computational mechanics at Michigan Technological University, says the group’s carbon nanotube film may go toward improving the quality and efficiency of fabrication processes for large composites, such as wings on commercial aircraft. The new technique may also open the door to smaller firms that lack access to large industrial ovens.

“Smaller companies that want to fabricate composite parts may be able to do so without investing in large ovens or outsourcing,” says Odegard, who was not involved in the research. “This could lead to more innovation in the composites sector, and perhaps improvements in the performance and usage of composite materials.”

It can be interesting to find out who funds the research (from the news release),

This research was funded in part by Airbus Group, Boeing, Embraer, Lockheed Martin, Saab AB, TohoTenax, ANSYS Inc., the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and the U.S. Army Research Office.

Here’s a link to and citation for the research paper,

Impact of carbon nanotube length on electron transport in aligned carbon nanotube networks by Jeonyoon Lee, Itai Y. Stein, Mackenzie E. Devoe, Diana J. Lewis, Noa Lachman, Seth S. Kessler, Samuel T. Buschhorn, and Brian L. Wardle. Appl. Phys. Lett. 106, 053110 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4907608

This paper is behind a paywall.

Atlantic Canada’s Lamda Guard signs deal to test nanocomposite windshield film with Airbus

This story comes from Nova Scotia although you wouldn’t know it if you’d only read the June 5, 2014 news item on Azonano,

Lamda Guard, a company based in Atlantic Canada, has signed an agreement with leading aircraft manufacturer Airbus to test a breakthrough innovation designed to deflect unwanted bright light or laser sources from impacting jetliner flight paths, and causing pilot disorientation or injury.

A June 4, 2014 news release (either from Lamda Guard.com or MTI [metamaterial.com]; Note: More about the multiple webspaces later] and there’s a PDF version here), which originated the news item, provides a little more information about the technology and the perspectives from various stakeholders

Lamda Guard’s innovative thin films utilize metamaterial technology on cockpit windscreens to selectively block and control light coming from any angle even at the highest power levels. “Today marks a milestone in optical applications of nano-composites,” said George Palikaras, President and CEO of Lamda Guard. “Through our collaboration with Airbus we are working to introduce our metamaterial technology, for the first time, as a solution to laser interference in the aviation industry.” The announcement today comes within weeks of the release of an FBI [US Federal Bureau of Investigation] report citing 3,960 aircraft laser strikes in the US in 2013 according to the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA).

Senior Vice President of Innovation Yann Barbaux stated: “At Airbus, we are always on the lookout for new ideas coming from innovative SMEs [small to medium enterprises], such as Lamda Guard. We are very pleased to explore together the potential application of this solution to our aircraft, for the benefit of our customers.”

Over the past year Lamda Guard has been working with the research community at the University of Moncton and the University of New Brunswick, as well as stakeholders, investors and funders to highlight the benefits of nano-composites. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) in particular has played an important role in Lamda Guard’s research and development efforts. In 2012, ACOA assisted Lamda Guard with technology commercialization and recently upgraded its contribution to $500,000 to further assist the company in developing and manufacturing its products for the aviation industry.

The Lamda Guard Airbus partnership marks the first time an optical metamaterial nano-composite has been applied on a large-scale surface.

I tried to find more information about the technology and tracked down this tiny bit, from the What are MetaMaterials? webpage on the MTI website,

A metamaterial typically consists of a multitude of structured unit cells that are comprised of multiple individual elements, which are referred to as meta-atoms. The individual elements are assembled from conventional microscopic materials such as metals and/or plastics, which are arranged in periodic patterns.

MTI’s precisely designed structures are developed with proprietary algorithms, producing a new generation of optical products that are built in state-of-the-art thin film nano-fabrication labs. MTI’s proprietary software accurately predicts the desired design pattern to generate a unique material that meets customer specifications. MTI’s sleek designs mean manufacturers can reduce their cost of materials significantly while increasing performance, e.g. by increasing the light output of an LED bulb or increasing the absorption of light in a solar panel.

Multiple webspaces and presences

While Lamda Guard has a .com presence, you will find yourself on the metamaterial.com website in the Lamda Guard webspace (I suppose you could also call it a subsite) once you start clicking for more information.  In fact, MTI owns three Lamda companies as per this description from the Our Company webpage on the MTI (metamaterial.com) website (Note: Links have been removed),

MTI is an advanced materials and systems engineering company developing and commercializing innovative optical solutions. The company’s core team has over 200 years of combined experience at the forefront of the design and implementation of metamaterials, making MTI a pioneer in bridging the gap between the theoretical and the possible.

MTI specializes in metamaterials, nanotechnology, theoretical and computational electromagnetics. The company’s in-house expertise enables the rapid development of a wide array of metamaterial applications, covering a diverse range of markets.

MTI’s technologies are adaptable and can be custom-designed to suit an industry manufacturer’s specifications allowing for scalability and rapid prototyping with minimum overheads. MTI provides access to world class nano-composite research and development, including specialty, as well as customized, products and licensing of its proprietary solutions to customers ranging from government to private companies.

MTI has three wholly owned subsidiaries:

Lamda Guard Inc. which develops advanced filters to block out selected parts of the light spectrum, protecting the eyes from lasers or other sources of hazardous light.

Lamda Solar Inc. products increase the efficiency of solar panel cells by absorbing more light.

Lamda Lux Inc. technology increases the delivered lumens and reduces the cost of thermal management of LED lighting.

Interestingly, the Lamda Guard Management team‘s (in the Lamda Guard webspace) Chief Science Officer, Dr. Themos Kallos, and Chief Intellectual Property Officer, Dr. Quinton Fivelman, both appear to reside in the UK (assuming I looked at the correct LinkedIn profiles).  Coincidentally, MTI’s contact page lists the company’s headquarters as being in Nova Scotia but Sales, Research and Development would seem to be located in the UK.

Presumably, this company is maximizing its access to government grants and tax incentives in both the UK and Canada. The deal with the Airbus suggests that this has been a successful strategy possibly leading to commercialized technology and, hopefully, jobs.