DEVELOPMENT AND QUALIFICATION OF THE FIBER-PLACED CONVERSION SPINDLE FOR THE V–22

Fiber-placed technology has enabled Bell Helicopter to significantly reduce the cost of one of our largest thick composite components, the conversion spindle. Introduced and funded as a cost savings to the V–22 program, the fiber-placed spindle also provided Bell with the opportunity to optimize the composite layup, yielding higher margins of safety that will be validated by static and fatigue testing. The higher margins also provided some much-needed allowance for small manufacturing anomalies, which in the past have resulted in a scrap disposition on a very expensive component. The analysis of defects will be substantiated by static and fatigue effects of defects testing on full-scale articles. Advancements in materials, processes, tooling and analytical tools have made the fiber-placed spindle a winner for the V–22 program. The development of the fiber-placed spindle was built on the lessons learned during the initial development and production run of the filament wound spindle. Even with this great historical data the fiber-placed spindle still had to overcome a number of significant hurdles including tooling, processing of thick composites, stringent dynamic requirements as well as geometry constraints which made the design and fabrication a significant engineering challenge.