Manufacturing of a Fiber Metal Laminate Lower Wing Cover Demonstrator
Manufacturing of a Fiber Metal Laminate Lower Wing Cover Demonstrator
Monday, April 10, 2017: 9:30 AM
Room 10 (Charleston Area Convention Center)
For a long time in the aircraft structures, the primary components were constituted mainly of aluminum alloys. Fiber Metal Laminates (FML) are a new class of material that exhibit excellent damage tolerance (crack growth performance and residual strength), while preserving similarity with aluminum structures. As the average aircraft economic life is over 30 years and there are new perspectives of increasing this time, the inspection and maintenance costs are important design drivers.
An FML lower wing skin would be a good candidate to improve the performance of the fatigue loading dominated lower wing. For this reason, Embraer is currently investigating the application of FML in this primary structure.
The development of the Lower Wing Cover Demonstrator was a cooperation with Arconic and consists of AA2524-T3 aluminum sheets alternately bonded to uni-directional fiber glass plies embedded in an adhesive system layers. Feasible manufacturing routes are required in order to apply Fiber Metal Laminates (FML) in large and complex curved structures such as lower wing panels. The investigation and development of manufacturing processes for FML has been part of the Embraer´s strategy for developing the TRL on this technology for structural applications. This lower wing cover has been assembled into a full semi-wing demonstrator. The semi-wing is being tested at Embraer under service conditions. The lessons learned from this new material application will influence the future developments of optimized FML structures concepts.
An FML lower wing skin would be a good candidate to improve the performance of the fatigue loading dominated lower wing. For this reason, Embraer is currently investigating the application of FML in this primary structure.
The development of the Lower Wing Cover Demonstrator was a cooperation with Arconic and consists of AA2524-T3 aluminum sheets alternately bonded to uni-directional fiber glass plies embedded in an adhesive system layers. Feasible manufacturing routes are required in order to apply Fiber Metal Laminates (FML) in large and complex curved structures such as lower wing panels. The investigation and development of manufacturing processes for FML has been part of the Embraer´s strategy for developing the TRL on this technology for structural applications. This lower wing cover has been assembled into a full semi-wing demonstrator. The semi-wing is being tested at Embraer under service conditions. The lessons learned from this new material application will influence the future developments of optimized FML structures concepts.