Overview
The aviation industry is faced with increasing demands towards the capability of aircraft engines: It is the aim to construct new aircraft engines with lower fuel consumption and emissions, higher reliability and prolonged use with less maintenance work. Although the raw materials get more expensive, the production costs should not increase.
It is the objective of the ManuTurb project to increase the efficiency of aircraft engines. Various measures are carried out and need to be explored:
- To realize even higher temperatures in the engine, suitable alloys are required.
- Usage of the blisk design (one piece turbomachine combining blade and rotor disk in one piece).
- To check the quality of the components, the production process needs to be supervised and testing methods for the components need to be implemented.
- The production process needs to be more flexible, due to a higher variety of different components.
The ManuTurb project is divided into 5 work packages. In work package No. 3 and 4, project partners and subcontractors are involved. The work packages are:
- AP1: process simulation and optimization
- AP2: laser processing
- AP3: analysis techniques: Nondestructive testing NDT
- AP4: high-performance processing
- AP5: Blisk design in aircraft engines
Funding
Results
For the different work packages, the following results were achieved:
- AP1: Improvement of the production flexibility, which results in an optimized operational time, WIP (work in progress) and production costs. Further, a precise system to fix components during the production process was invented. This is an important prerequisite for further automation.
- AP2: A partially-automated concept in laser processing was developed. For the laser drilling, new methods of cleaning, image processing and quality testing were developed.
- AP3: In this work package various analysis techniques for non-destructive testing were analysed and improved: It was possible to implement computed tomography (CT) for a precise depiction of complex turbine blades; The traditional X-ray film was replaced by a special image plate providing more details; An image processing tool for the automated quality check of components was tested; Test methods for coatings were developed.
- AP4: The fourth work package provides findings and results for the following topics: Integrated online process supervising for cutting tools; Usage of ultrasound to improve the cutting tools; high pressure cooling systems; Research on more effective production methods; Improvements in machine and device settings.
- AP5: The usage of the blisk design in aircraft engines was discussed. Therefore, research and development in construction, materials, production, quality assurance and validation were carried out.
Findings of the study are published by a final report (German only), which is available online via the Technical Information Library (TIB) of the Hannover University: http://edok01.tib.uni-hannover.de/edoks/e01fb11/644277270.pdf