Case Study: Composites Technology Research Malaysia Sdn Bhd (CTRM)

Industry Challenge

Composites Technology Research Malaysia Sdn Bhd (CTRM) is part of the global

supply chain in Composites Aero structures for major commercial and military

aircraft manufacturers in the world. The company plays a strategic role in the

Aerospace and Composites industries and has also diversified its business into

composites aircraft interiors, aircraft seats and transportations.

As part of the production process, the company is required to run thorough

physical tests on each of the components that it manufactures to ensure that they

meet the stringent standards. This is especially true in the case of components

made of composite materials. In order to guarantee that the testing process is

extremely meticulous and accurate, each component needs to undergo the

required scans/tests from all possible angles. This means that each component

needs to be flipped over by 180 degrees, rotated etc. to ensure that each portion

of this component is accessible to the scanning machines and also to guarantee

that all data and measurements are physically captured and recorded.

Flipping these components can be quite a challenging process, especially since

some of them such as the aircraft fan cowl can weigh upwards of 70 kilograms.

Flipping these is not easy even if there are 5 persons deployed to physically flip each

part.

Doing it manually can damage the product since there is a possibility that it might

get dropped or might touch or scratch some surface thereby damaging the part.

Since these parts are not ergonomically designed to be held or flipped, they can be

quite unwieldy. Yet, testing and certification of each component before it is sent to

the OEM is extremely important.

The company was keen to mechanise the process by designing a ‘flipper’ device

that could be used to physically flip the components as required for testing.

Flipping large composite part 180°

First design concept too costly to fabricate

Optimising Design for a Flipper for Airplane Components in Production

MSC Software | CASE STUDY

The team first attempted to build a flipper device using a generic open

source software to design it. While the software had only some basic

functionalities to enable the design concept, it fell short on several counts.

Therefore, the initial version was designed based on the open source

software and hand calculations. It had four pneumatic actuators for

flipping, two motors for up-down sliding, two counter-balancers at both

sides of the flipper to reduce actuator load, and four magnetic clamps.

The design had several issues and was not optimal. It had too many

actuators, making it costly to fabricate. It also had unnecessary

redundant motors, which not only raised the cost, but threw up issues

around asynchronous motion.

For the next iteration, the load from Adams was analysed using Patran

and MSC Nastran to calculate the various stresses as well as reserve

factors for all the stresses. There were four types of stressors - Tensile,

Compressive, Local buckling and Crippling - that needed to be analysed,

and each of them had a pass/fail test. Using inputs from this analysis, the

third concept was developed with variations such as a flipping pivot line

close to the Centre of Gravity (CG) of the part in order to reduce the

movement of the arm and provide greater support. This also helped to

improve stability and avoid use of magnetic clamps. The team also used

hinges to further improve the design.

Using a combination of the multibody dynamics simulation with Adams, Patran for pre/post-processing for Finite Element Analysis (FEA), finally MSC Nastran for FEA, the team was able to build a highly optimized design with a high factor of safety. In fact, the factor of safety in the third iteration saw an improvement of 23x over the second one. Not only was it functionally satisfactory and structurally sound, it weighed 15 percent lesser than the first iteration.

At the same time, the design helped save on cost of materials and helped prevent redundancy.

The team then designed a second concept using Adams, a multibody

dynamics simulation software on the .OBJ files imported from the open

source software. Connectors were applied between moving parts and

motions were applied on counter-balancers and actuators. In addition,

contacts were applied between the flipper and actuator arms to verify

forces in the actuation components. This helped confirm that the

actuation force in the pneumatic actuator was enough to lift the required

load.

The second concept was a definite improvement over the first one on

many counts. Instead of two motors in the first design, the redundancy

had been eliminated in the second concept, with only one motor for

up-down sliding with the gearbox. Also, the second concept had only two

pneumatic actuators for flipping.

Benefits

Key Highlights:

Product: Adams, MSC Nastran, Patran

Industry: Aerospace

Challenge: To design a flipper device to flip components that are under production for the purpose of testing them at different angles etc.

Solution: Multibody dynamics with Adams, MSC Nastran, and Patran to create an optimum flipper design.

For more information on MSC Nastran and for additional Case Studies, please visit: www.mscsoftware.com/en-indopacific/product/msc-nastran

CTR*2019SEP*CS

Second design concept with adequate room for improvement

Third Design Concept

Second design concept with adequate room for improvement

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