Fiber Placement Technology Advancements at Boeing Helicopters

Fiber placement is an innovative new automated process for fabricating advanced composite structures at substantially reduced cost. For the past five years Boeing Defense and Space Group, Helicopters Division has actively pursued implementation of the process including the acquisition of in-house fiber placement capability. Boeing purchased and installed a modified Cincinnati Milacron production fiber placement machine and developed manufacturing processes to support production. Tooling, materials, specifications and support facilities were all effected. Concurrent with the facility integration, product development was conducted and a number of full scale parts were fabricated at subcontractors. These parts include V-22 aft fuselages, CH-47 long range fuel pods, RAH-66 tailcone skins, and generic rotor blade spars. Parts fabricated on the Boeing machine include 767/747 engine cowlings and components for V-22 EMD. The V-22 aft fuselage, cabin side skins, sponsons and drag angle are all being fabricated on Boeing’s fiber placement machine. The design of each component has been tailored to take full advantage of the benefits of fiber placement.