The Evolution of Aerospace Sheet Metal Fabrication: Precision and Complexity
The Evolution of Aerospace Sheet Metal Fabrication: Precision and Complexity
Date：2024-01-13 16:20
The aerospace industry has always been closely intertwined with technological innovation, and nowhere has this been more evident than in the evolution of sheet metal fabrication. For a long time, the design of complex parts and structures was done mostly by hand, with only the most rudimentary tools to aid in the process. Then, the industry moved to CAD software—which, even in its earlier forms, was much more advanced than what had come before it. Now, we work in CAM, or computer-aided manufacturing. A good portion of the last decades’ worth of innovations in sheet metal fabrication has had to do with what these basic terms and their more advanced versions actually mean in practice. One of the big reasons we get to work with them in such a privileged way is that precision is everything in aerospace.
Improving efficiency is the overarching goal of aircraft designers when it comes to the improvement of their product. It translates into a weight reduction, a labor-intensive procedure, painstakingly taking the traditional sheet metal and forming parts in a series of presses. The new way, demonstrated in Langley's recent seminar, is to follow the traditional method but to use the sheets of metal in the hydroform or superplastic form, which allows for a creation of parts of unprecedented 3D detail. These two methods have long been used in our industry, but they must be seen as aluminum- or titanium-plate forming. They must also be seen in light of the new materials—stronger, smarter, and lighter—that homogeneously integrate with Langley's team's methodology to achieve this weight-reduction goal in a very efficient manner.
Sheet metal fabrication is demographic. It is moving toward automation, away from manual work, and is on the cusp of moving to the use of robotic systems, which have been around for decades but haven’t made the impact in manufacturing that most people believe they should. For the past 60 years in the U.S., we have actually gotten worse, not better, at using sheet metal efficiently, according to John C. Dixon, a sheet metal engineer who has written and lectured extensively on the subject. From the 1940s to the 1960s, the average amount of energy used to produce a given amount of sheet metal halved. Today, industry analysts say, we use 3 to 4 times more energy than we need to. By 2030, sheet metal fabrication will use 50% to 70% of the power it uses today, according to industry researchers.
Improving efficiency is the overarching goal of aircraft designers when it comes to the improvement of their product. It translates into a weight reduction, a labor-intensive procedure, painstakingly taking the traditional sheet metal and forming parts in a series of presses. The new way, demonstrated in Langley's recent seminar, is to follow the traditional method but to use the sheets of metal in the hydroform or superplastic form, which allows for a creation of parts of unprecedented 3D detail. These two methods have long been used in our industry, but they must be seen as aluminum- or titanium-plate forming. They must also be seen in light of the new materials—stronger, smarter, and lighter—that homogeneously integrate with Langley's team's methodology to achieve this weight-reduction goal in a very efficient manner.
Sheet metal fabrication is demographic. It is moving toward automation, away from manual work, and is on the cusp of moving to the use of robotic systems, which have been around for decades but haven’t made the impact in manufacturing that most people believe they should. For the past 60 years in the U.S., we have actually gotten worse, not better, at using sheet metal efficiently, according to John C. Dixon, a sheet metal engineer who has written and lectured extensively on the subject. From the 1940s to the 1960s, the average amount of energy used to produce a given amount of sheet metal halved. Today, industry analysts say, we use 3 to 4 times more energy than we need to. By 2030, sheet metal fabrication will use 50% to 70% of the power it uses today, according to industry researchers.
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