WING BOX BONDING

Project Information

WIBOND

Grant agreement ID: 832008

DOI

10.3030/832008

Project closed

EC signature date 19 March 2019

Start date 1 March 2019

End date 30 September 2021

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 1 284 925,00

EU contribution

€ 899 445,00

Coordinated by

METITALIA S.R.L.
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - WIBOND (WING BOX BONDING)

Reporting period: 2020-05-01 to 2021-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

WIBOND project is aimed to develop an innovative jig to allow structural bonding using paste adhesive of a composite wing box for the Small transport Aircraft (SAT).
Possibility to bond aerospace structure using paste adhesive have several potential advantage like avoiding drilling and fasteners installation and in the mean time fill the gap among part to be assembled . in addition paste adhesive work also to seal structures that are filled with fuel as in the case of wing box. This would means a significant reduction of assembly cost and flow time. Moreover the substantial reduction of fasteners reduce the weight of structure with potential fuel saving during service.
In spite of these advantages structural bonding by paste adhesive has not yet applied on commercial aircraft for the concern of Airworthiness agency about reliability and repeatability of bonding process.
WIBOND process has the ambition to overcome these concern developing, fabricating and delivery a bonding jig on which critical parameters of bonding process like part positioning, application of pull up load and bonding pressure are applied in a controlled and repeatable mode.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

A conceptual layout of bonding jig have been developed and agreed with Topic manager. Necessary ancillary equipments (vacuum cup, pneumatic Cylinders, enflatable tubes) have been defined and procured or fabricated. Then calibration and set up of different devices have been performed on test bench, Finally a subscale jig suitable to bond a subscale wing box provided by Topic manager, has been designed and fabricated.
Using this jig after a series of simulated bonding necessary to set up all the relevant parameters, the subscale box has been bonded. In this phase fiber optic sensor for structural Health Monitoring have been embedded in the bond line in support of a task of OPTICOM project also if this was not included in the WIBOND gap.
After dimensional inspection the subscale box will be structurally tested and then returned to IAI for final.
In parallel full scale jig design is progressing.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The bonding jig concept developed by WIBOND is innovative for what concern the method to set up part shape and bonding pressure application . It is expected that implementation of these concept on the bonding of a full scale wing box , together with parallel activity of Opticom for SHM will open the way to have a more robust process to submit to airworthiness agency with potential for go ahead for passenger aircraft.

WIBOND Subscale