|
The need
The aerospace industry is under pressure to reduce its carbon footprint and to make air travel environmentally neutral.
The industry is one of the most heavily scrutinised, largely because of the sheer volume of air traffic; in 2008 there were nearly 7,000 flights a day to and from UK airports.
The Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe has set ambitious targets for reducing emissions. It wants new aircraft entering service in 2020 to emit 50% less carbon dioxide than aircraft built in 2000.
The amount of CO2 produced by an aeroplane engine is directly related to the amount of fuel burned, and one of the ways of reducing this is by making the aeroplane lighter.
The results
In this project, Cambridge-based Tecvac worked with Sheffield University, Airbus Operations and NMB-Minebea to refine a product that could significantly reduce the weight of new Airbus aircraft.
On each Airbus aircraft there are up to 2,772 steel bearings. Airbus was keen to find a lightweight substitute.
Titanium alloy was a potential solution. If all of the steel bearings could be replaced by titanium alloy this would save at least 400kg. But titanium alloy alone is not strong enough to take the weight of the aircraft. Bearings in critical parts such as landing gear would quickly wear out under the pressure.
Tecvac, a surface engineering company that deposits hard-wearing coatings onto surfaces to prolong their lifetime, refined existing technology to come up with a solution.
Researchers knew that simply adding a hard-wearing coating would not work. The coating would crack and the titanium would be compromised.
Through the project Tecvac developed a new treatment that makes the surface of the titanium itself much more resilient. They then added a hard-wearing coating to the improved titanium alloy bearings. Together these technologies provided the lightweight solution that Airbus was looking for.
The market
The market for the new technology is huge. Manufacturers around the world are eager to fi nd new ways to reduce the weight of aeroplanes.
Airbus has already placed a £19m order for one type of wing structure bearing attaching the main landing gear for the new Airbus A350. Once these have been upgraded to titanium alloy, attention will turn to the thousands of other bearings on Airbus aircraft.
And the work won’t be restricted to new planes. Bearings on working planes can be replaced too.
|