GKN Aerospace team win 2014 Defense Manufacturing Technology Award
Above: F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter cockpit canopy.
The development team, including experts from the F-35 Program Office, Naval Air Systems Command and Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory as well as GKN Aerospace, has created an automated thermoforming process that is expected to save the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter programme as much as $125 million over the life of the programme.
GKN Aerospace’s transparency systems business (GKN-ATS), in close coordination with Lockheed Martin is responsible for the design and supply of the F-35 Lightning II canopy. This state of the art transparency is manufactured from highly specialised materials to meet the complex geometry and ultra-high performance requirements of the fifth generation F-35 fighter aircraft.
Until now, the labour intensive manufacturing process has required skilled technicians to process the acrylic transparency shell for up to six days in a complex thermoforming effort. During that time, the technicians regularly enter the oven to observe the canopy's progress, manually adjusting the process to control forming. This constant control and feedback during forming is critical to the finished canopy performance.
The automated manufacturing method uses four cameras with vision recognition systems to monitor the forming progress. The cameras are linked to a control system that is used to calculate the rate at which the canopy is forming. The control system automatically adjusts the positioning clamps to ensure the shape remains uniform and meets the stringent performance requirements for the F-35. This automation requires fewer expensive forming tools and has cut manufacture from six days to four or even less. Both initial and spare canopies will be produced using this process for more than 2,000 planned and delivered aircraft
Ron Kato, Managing Director GKN Aerospace, Special Products Group comments: "We are very proud to be part of the team receiving this Defense Manufacturing Technology award. Working with the ONR, we believe the team has created an elegant and highly effective solution to replace what was an intensive, manual, time-consuming - and therefore costly - process. This development is made even more significant because it has application across many areas of aerospace manufacturing.”
GKN Aerospace is the world-leading supplier of cockpit canopies with design and manufacture taking place at facilities in both the United States and here in the United Kingdom.