. Aircraft manufacturers are continually seeking to reduce their CO2 emissions and to make flights more efficient and environmentally friendly. A very important part of this quest is the reduction of aerodynamic drag during flight; these drag reduction techniques involve, among other things, the development of systems to avoid unwanted aerodynamic effects. One such system is LFC Laminar Flow Control, which includes Hybrid Laminar Flow Control (HLFC).
. The use of HLFC (Hybrid Laminar Flow Control) systems is an important advantage that will significantly improve the aerodynamic efficiency of flights. These systems can be active or passive and although some demonstrators have already been developed on this technology in the past, in this project, the objective is the research, detailed design and manufacture of the different components that integrate this system, above all, with the help of the emergence of new technologies, such as Additive Manufacturing, which allows us to manufacture more complex elements in a simple way. The two options, active and passive, have been studied, although in the end, only the active option will be shown in the demonstrator.
. To be able to assembly the HLFC systems to the leading edge of the wing complex tools were designed and manufactured to obtain aeronautic standards in terms of tolerances and geometry accuracy. Sensorization of the tooling allows the monitoring of the complete assembly process and ensures the process is being done correctly or, if not, understanding what is happening and enabling corrective actions. The objective for this project is to design an assembly means capable of monitoring and dynamically relaying information about the precision of alignment and accumulated stress to technicians during the assembly process. Development of an innovative multifunctional tool capable of integrating the wing leading edge structures using advanced sensors regarding the monitoring of the key parameters during the assembly operations, enabling a real-time manufacturing feedback to the operators with augmented reality methods.
. Another objective of the project is to use innovative technologies such as the additive manufacturing in the whole process (DfAM), increasing the impact of these technologies in the industrial sector. The use of this technology in the project, besides helping to improve the final result, also contributes to promote its use in the aerospace sector.
During the project, several tests have been carried out with different materials, designing and manufacturing several test pieces to obtain more information about their properties and to be able to choose the best option for each element to be manufactured and provide the maximum benefit to the HLFC system, manufacturing and testing test pieces with different materials.
The materials analyzed in these tests have been mainly different polyamides and the technologies used have been: FDM, SLA and SLS.
