COMPOSITE AILERON BY RTM PROCESS

摘要

Modern aircrafts design aims to increase the percentage of composite components of the structure in order to reduce weight, number of subparts and production time and costs. In order to conveniently employ composites for structural parts, new manufacturing techniques have to be applied to increase the overall quality of the final components. In the frame of VITAS Research Project a composite aileron has been designed and manufactured in order to evaluate the advantages that can be achieved by replacing a metal aileron, currently installed on a Piaggio Aero Business Aircraft, with a composite one. A dedicated design approach has been adopted to take into account the manufacturing aspects. Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) technique has been selected as manufacturing process. The concurrent engineering approach has been adopted in order to take into account all aspects (design, certification and manufacturing) since the first stages of feasibility studies. At the end of the design phase, some full scale ailerons have been produced and tested to demonstrate a satisfying and repeatable quality of the component.