Date of Award

8-16-2024

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Mechanical Engineering

First Advisor

Wout De Backer

Abstract

“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to truly give you a solution to thermoplastic repair” – Arnt. Director GKN Global Tech Center, 2023

The aerospace industry has a prevalence of composite materials due to their outstanding benefits to the mechanical properties of structures while serving to reduce the overall structure weight. With the development of the Advanced Air Mobility market, there is an anticipated growth in the number of composite structures. Also, with the manufacturing environment of the 21st century, these composite structures are more and more being made using thermoplastic composites that can be recycled at the end of their life.

One of the main challenges is that composites, for all the benefits that they bring, are sensitive to crack growth after impact damage. This requires the need to be repaired and inspected throughout their service life. The processes and facilities used in structural repair, which are still predominantly manual, are expected to be limited to the current capacity of repair depots with the anticipated rise in composite use across the industry. This raises a desire for the automation of repair processes that can repair rapidly and repeatably. Automated repair processes also redirect the focus of highly skilled technicians who are required to work under hazardous conditions. This is important because the aerospace maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) industry has been struggling with recruitment and retention.

An automated scarf repair process was developed over the course of this research to determine the level of automation achievable for composite repair.

Rights

© 2024, Stephen Hilton

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