Aerobloggen

It’s time for a report from the US and my temporary hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio (Midwest USA). GKN Aerospace has three factories in Cincinnati which, as well as in Trollhättan, produces parts for commercial aircraft engines, military aircraft engines as well as parts for the US space industry. I will spend my time here working within the civilian engine programs, in contrast to my time within space in Trollhättan – which will be a very exciting learning experience! I have so far developed a program which analyzes the data from the measuring machine to examine if there are any values out of tolerances and where these are located at the parts. Even though I love to cave down in Microsoft Excel’s lovely world of Visual Basic, it may be more interesting to hear about how daily life is here compared to life home in Sweden?

During these three months I will live in an apartment at an apartment hotel with about 5 minutes of drive to work. When I finally landed here in Cincinnati and was about to check in I asked at the front desk if I can take a walk to some place nearby for lunch. The answer I got says everything about the lifestyle here – “Well… Maybe it is possible to walk, but it’s much easier for you to take the car, it’s so close and easy to find the way there!” Well, yeah, OK. So I took my car the 300 meters to have some lunch. Later that evening I defied the American style and took a walk that 300 meters to have some take away food back to the room. It was totally fine to walk, but I had to cross the parking lots since the sidewalks are more or less nonexistent and the people looked at me as if I was an alien.

Something that fascinates me a lot is that everything are and looks just like it does in the movies. The houses looks like they do in the American series, the roads as well. The cars and the parking lots are nearly twice as large as in Sweden, school buses are as yellow as in the movies (and looks to be from the mid-1900s) and the police cars looks like the Sheriff joke once available in comedies (or maybe I just misunderstood everything and the cars in the movies are not a joke itself). The food portions are as big as I had imagined, and getting a take away box of the leftovers from the plate is something that you don’t even need to ask for, you will most certainly have it automatically independent how fancy the restaurant is.

So what do I think after spending almost four weeks in the country where everything is possible? The lifestyle is fantastic, if you live in the moment! The food is wonderful, the weather fascinating (one weekend 9°C and rain, the next weekend 30°C and sunshine – something similar to Swedish midsummer), Americans are extremely polite and pleasant and the shopping is lovely! But I can’t help but admit that it is not a sustainable way of living; neither for me personally, the people in my surroundings or the environment. But that is not a discussion I dare to take right now, more about that some other time.

I conclude with a picture from Cincinnati Skyline. Take care!

One part of GKN Aerospace is working, as familiar, within the space industry in the European space program Ariane. Ariane is a European series of rockets for launch of primarily satellites. The active rocket today is Ariane 5 where GKN manufactures exhaust nozzle and turbines for the first-stage engine, Vulcain 2. Right now the development of the next generation, Ariane 6, is in full progress here at the company since Ariane 6 soon will be launched and GKN will be even more involved in multiple parts, but more on that topic another time.

Why do we think that it is so important to work within the space industry here in Trollhättan and Sweden? Why should we to send up even more rockets into space? Where does space begin? How powerfull is a rocket engine? Is it really “rocket science” ?? There are many questions, but the answers are even more interesting!

Space is, at least for me, a very vague expression. Where does space begin? Actually, space is not that far away, it is enough to go about 100 km straight up to be in space. That means if you drive in a normal car, it takes about an hour to reach space! But it is actually not that easy. However, if we want to go further away, like to the moon, we have to run several months in the car, the moon is about 384,400 km away and the sun is 150 million km away (crazy far away).

But why don’t we take the car or an airplane up in space? It is because both the car and the jet engine in the airplane are dependent on air, which means that a different type of engine must be used for a space rocket. The rocket engine combusts hydrogen and oxygen where the exhaust from the engine has a very high speed and will thereby send the rocket with an equally strong force in the opposite direction, according to Newton’s third law. During a launch, it takes enormous amounts of fuel (175 tons or 500 000 liters), which all is stored inside the rocket. The rocket has a total weight of 700 tons, when launched from Earth. When the first stage engine, Vulcain 2 in this case, has started and everything looks good, the booster engines at the sides will be started as well. After about 50 km (halfway to space) these boosters are released and will be landing in the sea and picked up by boat, and the rocket continues into space with the power from Vulcain 2. When the rocket is in space, after 100 km, the satellites are no longer exposed to the same environmental stresses and the protective covers are now able to be released to save weight, which is of highest interest to minimize fuel consumption. After more than 150 km is the first-stage engine, including the “fuel tank”, released and the second stage engine is now used for last leg before the satellite reaches its orbit and exact position. After about 35 minutes of flight only the payloads, the satellites, remains which has a total weight of about 7 tons. This corresponds to 1% of the total weight of the rocket as it leaves the earth. 1% payload. Even here it is possible to imagine the challenges of developing a rocket and all its components. 1% margin of error is very little, and this is impossible – a miscalculation of 1% would surely mean that there is no room at all for the actual payload. Maybe it is, among other things, this called rocket science?

Here is a video of a launch of a Ariane 5:

https://youtu.be/cFbxa_HgRIs

Why are we so willing to invest so much money, energy and time on developing those rockets? Think about how many times each day you are using a satellite. Perhaps, you are using a mobile phone with all the features; checking social media, reading the magazine online, checking the weather – all of this is directly dependent on satellites and its function.

But you are using the satellite services even when you are looking at the news on the TV, using the GPS function while driving or paying with a debit card at the grocery store, or when you want to see real-time on the buses in the app (in your mobile, which uses the Internet ) … Well, I think you get it. Space is simply incredibly cool! Obviously, we have to continue working with it and develop the future! What would we do without our lovely satellites?

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.”

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.

You who is a student or have been a student probably recognize yourself in several different programming languages. Programs and languages are many as well as the variations and applications. During my time at Chalmers, the focus was mostly on Matlab and some different simulation and CAD tools. But, as a wise former trainee said in a post a year ago, there is another program that is used everywhere, all the time and are very useful in several ways. Unfortunately it is a bit forgotten in the academic world, in my personal opinion and experience. This program is nothing less than Microsoft Excel.

Excel is so much more than the plus, minus and a tool for nice diagrams. It is a program that in particular can save a lot of time – provided it is used correctly. I wish I had learned more about Excel during my years as a student. Just three months here at GKN, I have discovered many new complex functions and that the programming capabilities of Excel’s Visual Basic are endless. If you have not opened Visual Basic – do it, try it! (There are good exercises on Youtube for all of you who are just as confused as me. =))

Finally – to all of you – if you have the opportunity to take a course in Excel – do it !! =)

Some might ask themselves; what does it mean to be a Graduate Engineer? Or, what distinguishes a graduate trainee position against an employment as an engineer?

In terms of work, the biggest difference is that our first year consists of several internships within the company where we have the opportunity of rotation between different departments in order to gain a broad insight into the various areas. In addition to our daily work, we have some other things ongoing, such as study visits both internally at GKN Aerospace as well as externally, parallel to that we operates our own project (more on that in a later post).

Since the basic idea, as I said is that we should gain a broad insight into the whole business, we try to set up meetings with most of the different departments here at GKN Aerospace Trollhättan. During these meetings, different people gets the opportunity to tell us more about what is happening within their department and, for example, tell us about the current issues in their daily business. It gives us the opportunity to get a broad insight even in those areas that we ourselves are not working with, and quite honestly, who really knows what an engineer actually does? My hope is that I have a better answer or at least a greater insight into precisely that question when the year is over.

As an example, this Monday we had a meeting with the purchasing department, where we got to take part in some of their work and the issues, obstacles and opportunities that it means to work worldwide with a large number of different suppliers. For me it was very exciting to hear about this since it is something that is far away from my daily work!

Beside all internal meetings here in Trollhättan, we try to schedule meetings with other interesting external companies. Previously you’ve been able to read about our first activity week that took place in Linköping and Stockholm. Next activity week is planned for Vernon and Papendrecht, but as a supplement to these long way travel visits we try to visit interesting companies represented in the region. Today, we visited my old employer Volvo Trucks in Tuve (Gothenburg). We started the day with a production tour and then get to meet people who work with materials management, production management, and future product planning. All the meetings were very interesting and rewarding – it’s always nice to meet new companies and compare how we are working here at GKN to how other companies are working with similar challenges that we face (although for a completely different product).

I hope this post can provide clearer insight into the graduate engineer program structure here at GKN Aerospace in Trollhättan and that it can be a step towards a better understanding of the variations of the works of an engineer.

The time is here for me, Sofie, to debut here on the blog. Unlike my other trainee colleagues I work within the space propulsion here at GKN. GKN is part of the European space program and is responsible for the technical development and manufacturing of the outlet nozzle and the two motor turbines for the Ariane launchers. I spent my first workshop experience in the space workshop where parts are manufactured, assembled, welded and becomes a final product. During my weeks I was able to follow the whole process (deburring, assembly, welding, cleaning, penetrant, radiographic, measurement, control and production engineering), with a focus on the series production exhaust nozzle of the Ariane 5 rocket.

Ariane 5 is launched 6-7 times per year from the Guiana Space Centre located near Kourou in French Guyana. The exhaust nozzle currently manufactured here in Trollhättan is the nozzle in the middle at the bottom of the rocket, see the picture above. Although it looks very small on the picture it is in reality more than 2 meters high, 2 meters in diameter and weighs 450 kg! But compared to the rocket which is 50 meters long and have a total weight of 780 tonnes, it can easily be perceived as a very small detail.

Some fun trivia about the nozzle is that it has about 700 separate parts which are assembled here in Trollhättan and that each nozzle has 3 km of welding! The application area of the nozzle is very special and the circumstances which it is exposed are extreme. The operating temperature of the flame coming out of the nozzle is 3500 ° C and the active cooling of the top of the nozzle has a temperature of -250 ° C. To be able to design and produce a nozzle that can handle these challenges are very impressive! Something that I understood during the time in the workshop was what an incredible craftsmanship the manufacturing process is. Many operations are performed manually with an extreme precision and pride of the operators of the work done is more than well deserved. Working with special and challenging products, it is easy to understand why many of the guys (where are the girls one might ask) in the space workshop have worked there in many years. I would like to send a big thanks to everyone who took care of me and showed me your specific areas during my weeks in the workshop! I have just started my first period of rotation within production engineering in space propulsion; I will tell you more about that in future posts.

Finally, I turn to those of you who are about to begin your thesis. We continuously uploads exciting new theses under the tab “thesis” here on the website and I know that more is coming. If you are interested in doing a thesis in an incredibly exciting area do not hesitate – apply! Do you have any questions or concerns, please contact me (Sofie.Helmersson@gknaerospace.com) or Linn (Linn.Efsing@gknaerospace.com) and we’ll try to help! Do you have a specific interest or area that you want to do a thesis in please contact us so we can forward your request to the right person.