Aerobloggen

Production methods and processes are constantly evolving. New technologies and innovations enable more efficient and safer manufacturing processes at the same time as the complexity of the product design can be increased. Within GKN, we are at the forefront in areas such as Additive Manufacturing and are always open to investing in equipment that improve our employees’ health and safety. Below are some trends and future visions for industrial production.

Additive Manufacturing has in recent years been a hot and hyped-up production technology which is expected to revolutionize the manufacturing industry. The method enables the production of complex structures, opening up new, previously unthinkable, possibilities for designers. GKN invests heavily in the development of this technology, especially in Filton, GB, where the company’s center of excellence for Additive Manufacturing is located. The aim with this center is to accelerate the development of the technology and to be well prepared when the demand of parts manufactured by the method increases.

Automation of industrial production is something that has been going on for a long time. Equipment ranging from conveyor belts to welding robots have moved in to the workshops over the years and facilitated the work for the employees. So far, robots have mostly been working in cages to avoid causing any damage. However, the current trend is to remove the cages and let the robots interact with humans. This means that humans and robots can help each other and perform work on a detail in parallel. To maintain safety, the robots are equipped with for example cameras and sensors, and are thus able to track their environment at the same time as the employees are able to communicate with the robot through gestures.

Safety and health is an important area for GKN, why for example safety shoes and safety glasses are required in our workshops. To avoid ergonomic injuries, trainings in for example lifting techniques are offered by the company. However, there is still room for improvement in this area, like it is in most fields. One aid that may decrease the risk of ergonomic injuries is the so-called exoskeleton. An exoskeleton can be described as a mechanical structure that is attached to the body. The skeleton is designed to follow the human movement and assist when for example conducting heavy lifts.

Overall, it looks like that the rapid pace of development and the focus on automation in the production area will continue, and robots will be an increasingly common sight in the workshops.

This Friday GKN Aerospace Engine Systems in Trollhättan participated in a project called IGEday, Introduce a Girl to Engineering-day. A day that has been planned by some of our female engineers for a couple of weeks.

This morning, Friday May 18^th, we welcomed around 60 girls from a local high school and told them about how it is to work as an engineer in a technology-intensive company in the aerospace industry. The girls were later divided into smaller groups and got to try different engineering tasks. One group had a tour of the production and was introduced to the work as Manufacturing Engineer. Group number two visited the Materials Lab and got to see the kind of work done by our materials and chemical engineers. The third group was introduced to the work done regarding design, both solid mechanics- and CFD calculations and CAD.

All engineers working with this project are very happy with the day and hope that all the girls are too!

I would like to thank everyone involved at GKN for the support and commitment. Above, you can see a picture of some of our girls here at the company that took part in the day.
Have a nice weekend everyone!

On Thursday the 3^rd of March it was time for our meeting with Nigel Stien, CEO of GKN plc at GKN’s office Pall Mall in London. We had a very relaxed and interesting meeting with Nigel, where he told us about his career, what his journey has been like and which turns it has taken. Nigel pointed out how important it is to take the chances, since everything is not possible to predict and plan and that the opportunities will come, you need to be patient and he pointed the importance of always do your job well for each moment. Furthermore, we discussed a lot about leadership and the importance of balance in life, something I personally think is incredibly important and crucial in the long run (but of course it’s easier to say than to actually carry out in practice). Besides this, we talked a lot about future issues; such as were GKN stands in a few years, the challenges Nigel sees within the company and the aerospace industry in general.

One topic that interests me extraordinary is how the company attracts women to the engineering profession; it became evident that also Nigel finds that as a hot topic. Something that was noticed throughout the study trip was that we in Sweden have come relatively far in that field; here at GKN in Trollhättan you are rarely the only girl in the room – although the majority are still men. For me it is important and good to hear that the management, even at such a high level, values gender equality and is prepared to work actively in the question.

After an intensive study visit week, which went too quick and was incredibly fun, we are back in business in Trollhättan again and I have just started my final internship here in Trollhättan before heading off abroad – more about that later.

I would like to finish with a quote from Nigel Stein:

”Enjoy what you are doing. You need to love your whole life.”

Here comes another part of the story of our trip to and through England. Our first visit was Western Approach, the GKN site in the outskirts of Bristol. There we got to see their production of wing spars in spacious buildings and new machines. Spars are load bearing structures of wings seen in the figure on the right. Anyway, the production was, at the time of visit, focused on Airbus’s new A350 program and the military transport aircraft A400M Atlas (turboprop).

Producing the spars begins with a technique called Advanced Fiber Placement (AFP), in which tows of epoxy impregnated carbon fibers are robotically placed onto a mandrel. Layer upon layer of strategically placed material, reinforces the structure where it’s needed and minimizes the weight of the finished product. To get rid of porosities and promote complete bonding between fibers and epoxy, a pressurized oven (an autoclave) is used for the hardening process. Defects are checked for before painting seals the surface and the deal.

The composite spar structures are machined to dimensions and drilled for the installation of connecting parts, such as landing gear brackets and wing flap mounts. The assembly here avoids static fixtures which traditionally are used for such large parts. Instead, movable jigs skid along the building floor from one process step to the next and saves requirements for machine duplicates etc.

Similarly to Western Approach, another subject of visit and site in Bristol (or Filton) also works with the production and assembly of wing structures. The Filton plant manufactures the wing ribs, the parts perpendicular to the spars which define the shape of the wing (see figure). The ribs are CNC milled from thick base material slabs down to shin sheets with incorporated stiffeners to increase rigidity and reduce weight.

The costly yet necessary waste of material and generous time spent in machines has awakened the attention for a manufacturing technique on the rise. 3D-printing or Additive Manufacturing, as it’s referred to less populisticly, offers the possibility to form the stiffeners right onto the sheet product, thus potentially could save a lot of material and machining compared to conventional fabrication. Investments in the technology have resulted in the Centre of Excellence of the so called powder bed process at the site in Filton. Here, fabricated models show how changes in the design enables optimized structures for existing components, but the full potential of the technique requires redesign of interdependent structures, bluntly the whole aircraft.

Our last visit of our trip was the Imperial College where the Department of Aeronautics conducts research on Additive Manufacturing. We met with Dr Francesco Montomoli, Dr Rob Hewson and some of their postgraduates, who presented ongoing studies in the field. They work on design and manufacturing of aerospace products through Additive Manufacturing, but also development of programs that are able to disregard design restrictions, set by earlier means of production. With new possibilities, the solution to future problems (design of aircrafts) may come from AM.

Last week we, the graduate engineers were on a study visit trip, as Gustav wrote about in the previous post. After the visit at Airbus in Toulouse, we flew over to England and our first stop, Bristol. On Tuesday we made a day trip to Birmingham where we visited GKN Driveline Birmingham. Here we met Alicia Wilson, HR, and Niel Geldard-Williams, Plant Director GKN Birmingham. Niel made a presentation about Driveline in general and more detailed about the factory in Birmingham where the drive shafts and prop shafts are manufactured to several different automobile manufacturers worldwide. We learned more about how the shafts are working, their function and about the manufacturing process of the different shafts.

We had a shop tour where we got the opportunity to see how the shafts were manufactured, from entering as steel bars to drive / prop shafts. The factory in Birmingham is a modern factory which produces a total of around 53 000 bar shafts per week in 98 different versions. We all enjoyed the tour and it was especially interesting to see and compare the differences between the high-volume production in Birmingham with our low-volume production here in Trollhättan.

The trainees is back home from a tour in France and England. We have made many exciting visit. Airbus, Filton, Bristol, Birmingham, London, Imperial College and Pall Mall – where we conversed with GKN plc’s CEO.

I’ll tell you a little more about the Airbus visit. Friday, March 29, we visited Airbus in Toulouse a giant plant which makes the final assembly of newly built aircraft and sell to customers for example Qatar Airways.

Toulouse is the home of Airbus Group headquarters, comprising many support and strategic functions (customer relations, supply management, human resources, marketing, sales & communications, finance and more).

We were well received by Technical Executive Assistant to SVP – Head of A350XWB Central Program Management. We got an update of the A350 program, threats and opportunities. A quick spin of GKN difficulties as a supplier to Airbus in the mentioned program before we went out and looked at the assembly for A350 – 900 / -1000 two different size models. After that we went on a tour in their testing facility where they test software and hardware in simulators. A rig called the “Iron Bird” is a kind of combination test for hardware and software – wings and flight computers.

Toulouse is also a site for many Airbus Group Divisions. It is the production location for numerous Airbus aircraft (including the A320, A350 XWB and A330), has facilities dedicated to cabin furnishing and painting, and is home to the A380’s final assembly line and flight preparation. Airbus has a wide range of activities in Toulouse: engineering (general design, systems and integration tests, definition of the structure), structural testing, materials processes development, systems organisation, flight tests, architecture & general design, integration tests and systems, propulsion, structural design and computation as well as aircraft painting and delivery. The Airbus Training Centre also provides many training opportunities of all categories (flight crews, maintenance staff, cabin attendants, and performance and operational staff).

Those who are eager to experience similar things the Toulouse facility has guided tours for tourists.